Terminate Pilot Project on Importing Medicinal Herbs across Chi Ma Border Gate

	Importing medicinal herbs through Chi Ma border gate (Lang Son): Why are businesses not interested?
	Why does Lang Son propose to stop the pilot on importing medicinal materials through Chi Ma border gate?

Customs clearance at Chi Ma Border Gate. Photo: H.N

Accordingly, from October 30, the import of medicinal herbs across the border gate will be complied with regulations on importing medicine and medicinal ingredients in Clause 7, Article 91 of Decree 54/2017/ND-CP detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Pharmacy and related legal provisions.

According to the report of the People's Committee of Lang Son province, the results of two years of implementing the Pilot Project on Importing Medicinal Herbs across Chi Ma Bilateral Border Gate (referred to as the Pilot Project on Medicinal Herbs), Lang Son province has directed specialized agencies to coordinate in implementing tasks and solutions to ensure adequate conditions for the import of medicinal herbs across Chi Ma Border Gate.

However, since implementing the Pilot Project on Medicinal Herbs (from October 1, 2021 to October 1, 2023), there are only one shipment with a value of US$433,208 and a weight of 23.4 tons imported by Vietnam Medicinal Herbs Joint Stock Company.

Lang Son province said that although it had directed relevant units to disseminate the pilot import policy of medicinal herbs across Chi Ma Border Gate to import-export enterprises of Vietnam and China, after two years of implementing the pilot project, only one shipment was imported at the border gate. Therefore, it has not achieved the target set by the pilot project.

According to the province, the result of implementing the pilot project has not met the target because since the beginning of implementation, China has regularly applied measures and policies to strictly control the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to many difficulties in import-export activities.

After Decree 54/2017/ND-CP took effect, enterprises trading in imported medicinal herbs have basically switched to implementing at international border gates; some other enterprises import across railway border gates. Therefore, the importers have not paid attention to importing medicinal herbs across bilateral border gates.

Meanwhile, at Chi Ma Border Gate area, there is no specialized warehouse that meets the standards to preserve medicinal materials.

Import and export activities through the Chi Ma Border Gate are still mainly based on the border trade method, so customs clearance efficiency is limited, the category of goods has not been expanded, affecting the import of Medicinal Herbs across Chi Ma Border Gate.

Lang Son province assessed that despite many objective and subjective difficulties, the implementation of the Pilot Project in the past two years has not achieved the expected results.

Therefore, the province proposed that the Government consider allowing the suspension of the implementation of the Pilot Project and report to the Government on the import of medicinal herbs across Chi Ma Border Gate at an appropriate time.