Vietnam Customs answers the recommendations before the Prime Minister's meeting with enterprises

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The Ministry of Finance holds an annual dialogue on tax and Customs to support enterprises. Photo: Hong Nu.

The Shipbuilding Industry Corporation said that the level of improvement of tax and Customs procedures has not been improved. The attitude, sense of responsibility and capacity of civil servants and officers in the implementation of legal regulations, policies and administrative procedures have been still low and slow to change.

In this regard, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said that upon the implementation of the Government's Resolution No. 35 / NQ-CP on business support and development towards 2020, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued an action plan and achieved positive results after 1 year of implementation. According to the VCCI Customs Clearance Assessment Report for 2016, out of a total of 1,035 import-export enterprises in the survey, most of the indicators on information access, Customs procedures have improved compared to 2015; some indicators on the services of Customs officers have changed positively, but they still have a slower pace of change than in 2015. This result closely reflected the efforts and actual results of the Customs under the Government’s Resolution 35 / NQ-CP. However, the reform of Customs administrative procedures does not only require the efforts of the Customs sector but it also depends on the efforts of the specialised management ministries for imported and exported goods.

Therefore, for the recommendations of the Shipbuilding Industry Corporation as well as the similar recommendations of some other enterprises, the General Department of Vietnam Customs shall acknowledge for solutions to overcome problems in line with the assigned competence, proposing to senior authorities to remove obstacles beyond the authority of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, thereby bringing the Government’s Resolution 35 / NQ-CP in a more practical and effective way.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs said that in order to improve the sense of responsibility of civil servants and to ensure discipline and integrity in the Customs, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has implemented measures such as improvement of regulations; reform and modernization of Customs; issue of legal provisions related to the State's regimes and policies as well as regulations and Customs procedures of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Vietnam Customs towards publicity and transparency on the media; regularly organizing professional training courses for Customs officers and civil servants; organizing a hotline system to receive and process information on harassing behaviours of Customs officers; and strengthening internal inspections and supervision.

For recommendations of the Business Association in Hai An District, Hai Phong City that the State should strengthen the market inspections and take measures against smuggling, commercial fraud, counterfeit goods, poor quality goods affecting domestic manufacturers and consumers, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said that the fight against smuggling in general and anti-counterfeiting, in particular, were common responsibilities of the whole political system, from central to local levels. The Party and the Government have recently paid attention to intensifying the drastic direction of anti-smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods through the establishment and effective operation of the 389 National Steering Committee (in which the Ministry of Finance is the standing unit); Steering Committee 138 / CP on crime prevention and control of the Government aims to promote the combined strength of ministries, branches and competent forces in the whole country in the prevention and fight against violations and crimes in smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods. Under the drastic direction of the Government, the ministries, branches and competent forces have based on their functions and tasks to simultaneously inspect and thoroughly handle counterfeit goods, poor quality goods which fail to meet quality standards.

Recently, with the determination to repel violations, crimes in general and crimes of smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods in particular, the Prime Minister has approved the National Strategy on crime prevention for 2016-2025, towards 2030. Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade was assigned for building and deploying the project on the prevention, control, and quality control in key localities; and the Ministry of Finance was assigned for implementing the projects on prevention and combat of law violations in the field of finance, securities, import and export of goods; acts of transferring and evading taxes of enterprises.

Accordingly, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has issued the Plan No. 10876 / KH-TCHQ on preventing and combating violations and crime prevention in the field of import and export of goods for 2016-2020. Building professional solutions to detect, prevent and strictly handle smugglers and illegal transportation across borders, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods.

Besides, anti-smuggling, anti-commercial fraud and counterfeit goods are the main tasks of the General Department of Vietnam Customs. Annually, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has instructed its subordinate units to intensify professional measures, take the initiative in coordinating with the competent forces in the area to closely inspect and supervise smuggling, commercial fraud activities, focusing on items of unknown origin and counterfeit goods.

In the first 4 months of 2017, the Customs control force detected, seized and handled nearly 50,000 pharmaceutical tablets, blisters, medicinal vials, 50 medical machines, 560 kg of chemicals, 84,960 kg of fertilizers of all kinds, over 557,000 kg of animal feed; 46,933 kg of sugar, more than 17,000 cosmetic products and 3,105 items of electronic components.

In the coming time, the General Department of Vietnam Customs and the Ministry of Finance will continue to follow the Party's and Government's guidelines to further strengthen anti-smuggling, anti-commercial fraud and anti-counterfeit goods. Continuing to revise the system of legal basis related to Customs control, creating the premise to further improve the quality and effectiveness of the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods; fulfill the role of the 389 National Steering Committee, advise the Government on efficient management of anti-smuggling, anti-commercial fraud and anti-counterfeit goods to ensure the requirements of the new situation.

General Department of Vietnam Customs completes many important projects in the first quarter of 2017 VCN- In the first quarter of 2017, the General Department of Vietnam Customs completed 3 projects to ...

In addition, strengthening coordination with competent forces, strengthening the collection and processing information to detect ways, tricks, lines of smugglers to have appropriate measures to fight.