The General Department of Customs leads inadministrative reforms of the Finance sector

	Customs: Enhance the responsibility of the leaders in implementing administrative reforms
	Administrative reform is a core value to enhance the effectiveness of state-owned enterprises operation
	Customs leads the administrative procedures group with low compliance costs

A Ha Giang officer guides on new documents for enterprises. Photo: Thu Trang

Maintaining first position

According to Decision No. 1703/QD-BTC dated August 29, 2019 of the Ministry of Finance, on a 100-point scale, the General Department of Customs is ranked first in five units (with a self-score of 97.5 and evaluation score of 96.5), the State Treasury ranked second (with a self-score of99.5 and evaluation score of 96), the General Department of Taxation (self-score of 98.5, the evaluation score of 95.5), the State Securities Commission (self-score of 100; the evaluation score of 95), the General Department of State Reserve (the self-score of96; the evaluation score of 94).

According to the results of monitoring and evaluation, the units at the General Department level of the Ministry of Finance all achieved over 90% of the maximum points and there was not much difference, demonstrating the results on administrative reform of these units is quite high and comprehensive.

In particular, this result is considered a remarkable achievement for the efforts made by the Customs sector in recent years to create a fair, open and transparent business environment, reducing cost for enterprises.

The General Department of Customs has always determined that administrative reform is a key political task, which is carried out regularly and continuously, making an important contribution to administrative reform activities of the Finance sector. In addition to completing the legal corridor on customs law, the Customs sector has increased the application of information technology in customs operations. This is the “leverage” that contributes to creating favorable conditions for businesses to improve competitiveness and achieve growth in production and business activities.

With efforts approaching international standards on modern customs management, the General Department of Customs has stepped up the implementation of administrative procedure reform, proposed reductions and simplification of many administrative procedures in the customs sector. At the same time, the General Department of Customs has drastically accelerated the application of information technology, applied modern technical equipment in the state management of customs, achieving important results.

As the customs administrative procedures are made public, it helps enterprises easily access administrative procedures. Proposals to abolish unnecessary procedures; cutting down and simplifying administrative procedures; cutting down business conditions in the field of customs is expected to save VND15 billion/year for the business community, but still meet the requirements of state management in the field of customs. The specialized inspections are regularly implemented by the General Department of Customs, pushing ministries and branches to further reform.

Drastic reform for the business community

The Customs sector has been constantly reforming institutions, administrative procedures, and public finance, modernizing, effectively implementing the National Single Window, the ASEAN Single Window and promoting information technology in customs operations. However, according to the General Department of Customs, the development of documents of registration schemes for law-making programs; controlling the construction progress; a number of documents with wide scope of adjustment, complicated content, and consultation with ministries and branches affected the promulgation progress.

In addition, the workload of the Customs sector is increasing but staff numbers have not.The requirements to accelerate the reforms shortening the time for clearance of import and export goods, reducing input costs for businesses puts pressure on Customs to regularly reform to meet the requirements in the new situation. Besides, the number of goods subject to specialized inspection also accounts for a large proportion; legal documents on specialized inspection have a wide scope of management and inspection, many items do not have HS codes, do not have sufficient standards and regulations to carry out the inspection; there are overlaps in the management of specialized inspections.

In particular, the number of new administrative procedures on the national single window has not met the targets set by the Government's action plan. The application of IT has not covered all fields of state management of customs.

Therefore, in order to meet the increasing requirements of people and businesses on transparency and effectiveness for the service of administrative agencies, the General Department of Customs will continue to make efforts in administrative reform.

Only 15% of administrative reforms completed https://english.vov.vn/economy/only-15-of-administrative-reforms-completed-381190.vovOnly 15 percent of business and investment conditions have been cut or simplified since the start of ...

In particular, continuing to improve the customs legal system to accommodate the rapid expansion of e-commerce and international integration; applying modern customs management mechanisms (such as customs clearance guarantees) in implementing administrative reform; promoting the application of IT and modern equipment to enhance the management capacity of the Customs, and at the same time applying the achievements of the fourthindustrial revolution in the fields of state management of customs.

In addition, the General Department of Customs has implemented measures to improve the cross-border transaction index,specifically, solutions to reduce the time and costs of performing specialized management and inspection procedures; reducing the time and cost of carrying out customs procedures; reducing the time and cost of carrying out procedures with companies operating in ports, warehouses and yards. Promoting cooperation with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Vietnam Fatherland Front.Regular dialogue with enterprises to promptly solve problems and propose adjustments to better serve policies of people and businesses.

In order to improve administrative reforms, the General Department of Customs continues to actively coordinate with ministries and branches to drastically reform the specialized inspection of import and export goods; continue to perfect the customs legal system to accommodate the rapid increase of e-commerce and international integration. In 2019, following the guidance of the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Customs has been implementing modernized reform solutions to improve the cross-border transaction index, namely solutions to reduce time and cost for performing specialized management and inspection procedures; reduce time and costs of customs clearance.