Customs Policies: Positively Affecting Import-Export

Since the Government’s Decree No. 12/2006/ND-CP dated January 23, 2006 took effect, the policy for managing imported and exported goods is seemingly more transparent and more simplified. The number of imported and exported goods items with licence from authorities has decreased while more goods are cleared by enterprises and customs authorities. This policy facilitates enterprises to import goods to serve production and business, thus cutting production costs and shortening the production and business cycle.

 

Following the Decree No. 12/2006/ND-CP, the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs (GDC) cooperated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to grant automatic licences on certain types of goods to limit trade deficit while easing up business and production operations of companies. Automatically licensed goods items are mainly involved in consumer goods, not input materials and fixed assets.

 

According to the current policy, most exported goods are cleared at customs offices without showing permits from responsible ministries and authorities. The automatic licensing regime also helps eliminate the “give and take” regime and reduce time cost for enterprises. Many key exports enjoy this regime, including agricultural products, aquatic products, apparels, footwear, crude oil, woodwork and electronic products.

 

According to the survey result on the implementation of customs modernisation project concluded by a group of the World Bank’s specialists, customs formalities of Vietnam matched more than 85 per cent with the world standard. Time for customs clearance was shortened. However, several shortcomings still exist due to lax and overlapping responsibilities of relevant ministries and organs. The irrationalities take time and costs of involved enterprises.

To overcome difficulties to give a hand in avert deepening economic slowdown, ensure social security and deal with adverse impacts of the global economic recession. In order to lessen the repercussions of the economic slowdown the Government issued the Resolution No. 30/2008/NQ-CP on December 11, 2008. To execute this resolution, on January 13, 2009, the Ministry of Finance promulgated the Circular No. 05/2009/TT-BTC on guiding several contents vis-à-vis procedures of customs, import tariffs, export tariffs and tax management over imported and exported goods.

 

After more than one month of implementation, the Circular is proven to tackle certain difficulties and trim production costs and product prices for enterprises, cut administrative expenses at customs offices and shorten clearance time while import and export activities are still normal. To implement this policy, the General Department of Customs (GDC) assigned local departments of customs to examine and extend tax delay (to over 275 days). Several amended provisions have been warmly applauded by the business community, including the provision on customs law compliance, a provision on tax refund procedure, and a provision on cooperation of taxation authorities and customs authorities in examining debts of more than 90 days overdue. The adjustments have helped boost import - export activities and raise taxpayers’ awareness of tax payment.

Together with the government’s measures to boost exports in order to avert the recession and stabilise social security, the customs sector has adopted many solutions to improve its work flow, restructure personnel and clearance process for imported and exported goods and gradually apply internationally standardised processes. On March 16, 2004, the Minister of Finance issued the Decision No. 810/QD-BTC on “the plan for reforming, developing and modernising the customs sector in the 2004-2006 period” (Plan 810). The following was the Decision No. 456/QD-BTC dated March 14, 2008 on “the plan for reforming, developing and modernising the customs sector in the 2008-2010 period” (Plan 456).

 

The implementation of these legal documents has generated positive results of supporting business and production operations of enterprises.

-                     Changing the awareness of customs officers in customs modernisation and changing the customs management method from pre-examination to post-examination. Customs procedures have been basically simplified and harmonised based on risk management methods and IT applications. Customs procedures are clear and effective with clear responsibilities of involving parties. Risk management methods have been applied to several stages of customs clearance; thus, the percentage of actually examined goods is only 20-25 per cent.

-                     Accelerating IT application to electronic customs in Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City customs offices. Customs formalities have been gradually internationalised on the basis of simplification and harmonisation to reduce the paper workload at customs offices. The time of customs clearance for “green-marked” goods flows is 5-10 minutes, “yellow-marked” goods flows is 20-30 minutes and the “red-marked” goods is undefined as it depends the actual time of manual examination. The e-customs procedure has been warmly welcomed by the business community and the society.

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In 2009, the General Department of Customs will expand the application of e-customs to other localities, including Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Lang Son, Hanoi and Da Nang. In parallel with e-customs, the customs sector will continue deploying customs tele-clearance. In 2008 alone, the volume of customs tele-clearance accounted for over 67 per cent nationwide while electronic customs made up for only some 2 per cent.

 

To provide most support for enterprises, the General Department of Customs usually organise dialogues for customs officers and businesses at customs offices in many provinces and cities to discuss and seek solutions to customs problems to boost import and export activities.