Working together to Simplify Administrative Procedures

The prior tasks for deeper cooperation are opinions of all representatives of Vietnam customs and more than 80 enterprises who attended the Trade Day themed Customs-Businesses- toward a true partnership held in Hanoi May 5 on the framework of the 4^th ASEM working group on customs matters (AWC). The Customs-Trade Day has recorded the progress as well as recommendations about future cooperation of the Asia-Europe customs in general and of Vietnam in particular.  

 

Obviously, the international trade and strong development of the world trade organization (WTO) have helped to create a liaison among customs forces of nations in the region. Over the past ten years, the Asia-Europe customs cooperation has played an important role as foundation of mutual understanding and constructive dialogues. Representative of the European Commission (EC) delegation in Vietnam said that the role of customs in the world has changed significantly, not only focusing on tasks of trade activities and state budget but also protecting environment and ensuring national safety and security. The close cooperation between customs and enterprises is the issue which national leaders always pay special attention. The cooperation is very significant to customs activities everyday.       

 

In Vietnam, the administrative reform and modernization of the customs sector has obtained remarkable achievements over the last years. Pham Gia Tuc, Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said the Chamber has closely cooperated with ministries and agencies, particularly Ministry of Finance, General Department of Customs, to hold surveys and collect opinions of enterprises, associations of enterprises on making laws which are suitable to the Vietnamese current system and international requirements. The VCCI and the community of businesses also highly appreciated the process of administrative reform and modernization of the customs sector. With its role as member of the government Project 30’s administrative reform council, the VCCI said that the Vietnamese customs sector is one among the state institution having made great renewal on administrative procedures, meeting the target of simplification of 30 percent of administrative costs for enterprises. The customs sector has applied customs declaration service online at all provincial and municipal customs departments; raised the online customs declaration rate nationwide to 80 per cent in 2009 and targets the rate at more than 90 per cent this year; put into operation container scanners at Ho Chi Minh City since early April and is preparing to carry out the model in Haiphong. With these efforts, the sector has helped enterprises reduce remarkably cost and time for export-import transactions.  

As compared customs procedures nowadays to those of ten years ago, almost all representatives of enterprises agreed that the time and cost for each export-import batch have been reduced remarkably. The application of online customs declaration has helped to reduce fees for transport and paperwork. The customs clearance of goods is 3-5 times quicker than past. However, besides opinions remarking the contribution of the customs sector, many enterprises also showed the customs sector need to further professionalize to catch up with regional nations and create a convenient environment for businesses. Nguyen Tien Giang, vice general director of the ship hiring and transport joint stock company one among existing issues to both the customs and the community of businesses is the application of goods tariff code (HS cos). Although Vietnam has attended the Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System" (HS Convention) since 1998, so far the application of HS cos by customs departments is difference from each other, causing a lot of controversy and even contradicting to that of regional customs. In addition, while the intentional HS cos code has eight digits, that by Vietnamese customs is the ten-digit code. The difference causes controversy and difficulties to enterprises. The translation from English to Vietnamese also cause different understanding ways, which make both customs staff and enterprises puzzled.       

 

Regarding solutions to the issue, Nguyen Giang Tien said the customs agency should translate the HS cos convention and built an English-Vietnamese bilingual tariff list or French-Vietnamese list as a foundation for the application in the whole sector and facilitate enterprises. By doing that, the customs will avoid controversy relating to tariff levels and prevent the tariff evasion and trade fraud. 

 

About the transparency among export-import activities, Nguyen Van Toan, Vice Chairman of the Association of Foreign-invested Enterprises said that to facilitate enterprises the customs should clarify in applying the tariff codes and give conditions to enterprises to attend in building policies. Toan emphasized that the time for enterprises to contribute opinions to policy documents is currently too short, only one week. Another problem is that the process of making petition and settling complaints relating to tariff is not clear. Toan said the Association of Foreign-invested Enterprises has sent several complaints for two years, but not yet been handled with.

 

Representative of the Vietnamese General Department of Customs said based on the working results of the Customs-Trade Day, the first of its kind so far, the ASEM customs will discuss and agree about the method to build and organize dialogues with enterprises yearly in order to build the customs-business partnership and ensure benefits of the community of businesses.