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Nearly 500 kg of ketamine valued at VND 500 billion was seized in the customs control area in HCM City Customs Department. Photo: L.T

Facing the above shortcomings, on November 3, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued Official Letter 7059/TCHQ-DTCBL sending to National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan; Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Do Ba Ty; Chairman of the NA's Committee for National Defence and Security Vo Trong Viet; Committee for National Defence and Security, Law Committee, Justice Committee and the Ministry of Justice.

In this letter, the General Department of Vietnam Customs affirmed the important role of the Customs sector in anti-smuggling work, and pointed out contradictions and overlaps in controlling vehicles and handling violations in Customs controlled areas as per the Customs Law and guiding documents.

Part1: Customs is a leading force on anti-smuggling

Regarding functions, duties and management methods of the customs authority, per Article 1, Article 2, Article 7, Article 12, Article 35, Article 88 of the Customs Law, in the customs controlled area, Customs is charge of inspecting, supervising goods and means of transport; performing tax law for import and export goods; preventing and combating smuggling and illegal cross-border transport of goods.

Proposals and suggestions have not been accepted by the drafting agency

In customs controlled area, the Customs Law specifies that Customs has the main responsibility and leads in handling smuggling, illegal cross-border transport of goods and if other agencies detect smuggling orillegal cross-border transport of goods in customs controlled area, they must immediately notify customs for inspection and handling.

To perform this task, Customs must inspect, supervise and control vehicles on exit and entry, import and export goods to perform State management on foreign trade and tax collection for the State budget. Only the Customs is in charge of the revenue collection and the Border Guard is not assigned this function and task.

Over the past time, Customs has developed infrastructure systems, scanner systems for inspection and control for vehicles and luggage on entry and exit, import and export goods for State management in customs.

For green-channel declarations, following Party, State and Government guidelines and policies on international integration to create maximum favourable conditions for import and export activities, the customs clearance time must be reduced, and Customs applies risk management for import and export goods. Risk management application and channel classification of declaration is to facilitate trade while ensuring control and management for import and export activities, prevention of smuggling, trade fraud, drugs and weapons by anti-smuggling and post clearance audit forces of the Customs and other forces such as Market Surveillance andPolice. It is fact that the violations of abusing the channel classification of declaration have been detected and handled.

For prevention of smuggling, illegal cross-border transport of goods and drugs, according to statistics from 2016 to October 2020, the Customs discovered and arrested 81,644 cases, the value of infringing goods was estimated at VND 10,421 billion and the Customs prosecuted 245 cases andtransferred 573 cases to other agencies for prosecution.

Recently, Customs has discovered many cases of illegal trafficking and transportation of drugs in customs controlled areas and effectively coordinated with the Border Guard in arresting and handling offenders such as the seizure of 98 kg of drugs hidden inside wooden statues discovered by Customs in Ha Tinh and the seizure of 500 kg of ketamine and 276 kg of meth in the Customs controlled area in HCM City.

Overlapping provisions in the draft Vietnam Border Guard Law with duties of the Customs which has been analysed in detail by the General Department of Vietnam Customs, will be updated by Customs Newspaper.