What does the picture of customs brokers show? - Final part: What do customs brokers need to develop?

Customs brokers play an important role in the goods transportation chain across borders

At the latest online meeting held by Customs News related to customs brokers, Deputy General Director of Customs General Department Mai Xuan Thanh said in the current period of international economic integration, logistics activities were strongly promoted both in terms of quality and quantity, not only for domestic logistics activities but also the participation of foreign enterprises with good investment in infrastructure and manpower. Customs broker services are part of the logistics service supply chain, making an important contribution to the chain of cross-border transportation activities.

The policy of developing customs brokers is to create more favorable conditions for the logistics service to grow strongly when the customs declaration service is professionalized, to shorten time of customs clearance, and to reduce violations due to the lack of sufficient conditions to study customs laws and policies on management of import and export goods, thereby reducing the costs related to import and export goods.

The General Department of Customs has implemented a number of solutions such as: giving advice to build a transparent, specific, unified legal basis to facilitate the development of customs brokers. With specific regulations, creating favorable conditions for customs brokers to gradually develop a customs broker network to serve the needs of enterprises in the spirit of professionalism, transparency, being a reliable representative of import-export enterprises and customs authorities. The General Department of Customs has also developed an in-depth training program, updated the provisions of the customs law; promptly detected and handled violations of agents and staff. The General Department of Customs is willing to support, share, introduce and guide customs procedures and promptly handle difficulties and problems of customs brokers. Units belonging to and attached to the General Department of Customs also signed a regulation to coordinate with business associations, including Vietnam Logistics Business Association, to support the contents allowed by their powers and functions.

Mr. Au Anh Tuan, Acting Director General of Customs Control and Supervision Department (General Department of Vietnam Customs):

Customs brokers need to improve capacity Vietnam is in the period of international integration, import and export activities are strongly developing. Besides, Vietnam is also considered a potential country with geographical advantages to become an important link in the global logistics system. In some developed countries like Japan, the number of customs declarations through customs brokers accounts for 90%. The trend of conducting customs declarations through customs brokers is increasing over the years due to the benefits that they can bring to import-export enterprises. Therefore, the operation of customs brokers must certainly be and will still be a potential activity with many opportunities that have not yet been exploited.

In order to achieve the goal of professionalizing and developing business activities of customs brokers, the General Department of Customs must improve the capacity of brokers. Specifically, building a good, fluent and competent staff, who have a firm grasp of both goods management policies and customs operations; and regularly updating and improving knowledge to enhance the service quality during the implementation of many bilateral and multilateral agreements. At the same time, improving the quality of customs broker services; increasing the provision of services and the responsibility of customs brokers in their services to attract customers and create credibility with customers and customs agencies. For example, customs brokers provide customs consultancy and clearance services for import-export enterprises, they will be responsible for their consultation not only during the clearance process but also after the goods have been cleared if the inspection agencies have other conclusions about the goods classification codes and payable tax rates. At the same time, they arrange and organize the apparatus, management and organization of the business activities towards professionalization.

On the side of the state management agencies, the General Department of Customs has built a master plan with many activities aimed at developing and improving the quality of the Customs brokers’ operation, including: setting up an email address to receive requests, instructions and support customs brokers at the General Department of Customs; setting up a separate channel at the locations of customs procedures to receive requests, guidance and support customs brokers; arranging civil servants at all levels to assist customs brokers in the process of carrying out customs procedures; coordinating with functional units at the border gates so that customs brokers can register for the inspection, transportation and loading and unloading schedule in advance; organizing training courses on customs clearance knowledge for customs brokers; and deploying cooperation activities to develop customs brokers among customs offices, customs brokers and import-export enterprises.

Mr. Hoang Dinh Trung, Deputy Director of the Customs Modernization Reform Commission (General Department of Customs), focuses on developing and improving the quality of customs brokers.

The plan to develop and improve the quality of customs brokers in the period 2019-2022 aims to develop professional, reliable customs brokers that play an increasingly important role in customs clearance of import and export goods. This is a large-scale, comprehensive, and multidimensional plan covering necessary activities related to customs brokers.

The plan of the General Department of Customs focuses on 6 major contents: First, complete the legal basis, including content that facilitates, enhances and consolidates effective management conditions for enterprises. Second, facilitate import and export through customs brokers by implementing priority plans for agents. Third, support customs brokers to improve customs procedures capacity. This is a big activity with a series of issues such as: equipping knowledge to ensure that customs brokers are good at operations to decrease mistakes; renewing the form of customs examinations in the direction of gradually shifting from written exams to computer-based exams, thereby improving professionalism and transparency. Fourth, promote cooperation of the parties to support customs brokers. This content is quite important because without the cooperation, they cannot develop. The General Department of Customs assigns local customs to build a cooperation model suitable to the real situation, to promote customs declaration activities through brokers. In addition, the Customs office also promotes relevant parties to cooperate in the development of customs broker network to provide diverse services for businesses, making Customs brokers an important factor in import and export activities. Fifth, the General Department of Customs aims to make the agency transparent. The customs brokers’ information is updated fully, regularly, publicly, consistently, and timely, thereby knowing the status of Customs brokers. Sixth, improve the efficiency of the management of customs brokers through the construction of required customs management problems to put them into information technology solutions in the overall information technology restructuring system of the customs sector.

With the implementation of the plan in stages, the units will build a deployment roadmap in each area and field, thereby evaluating and controlling the efficiency, output and implementation time.