As a result of fighting against the trade gap and smuggling, urging tax collection and strictly tackling enterprises with un-paid taxes, the customs sector has achieved its targets sooner than scheduled, contributing thousands of billions of VND into State budget.
According to preliminary report of General Department of Customs, by the end of November 2011, estimated national export - import turnover reached over US$183 billion, increased 30 percent compared to the same period in 2010. In November 2011, trade deficit is estimated to be US$700 million, notably decreasing by about 4.6 percent compared to the previous month, consequently it increases the early 11 month trade gap of 2011 to US$8.9 billion, attaining 10.2 percent of total export turnover. Particularly, in November alone, export turnover is estimated to reach US$ 8.6 billion, increasing 2.4 percent compared to that in October; by that, the total export turnover of the first 11 months in 2011 is increased to US$87.16 billion, 28.2 percent higher compared to the same period last year.
In 2011, customs sector was assigned to contribute to the State budget VND180,700 billion. However, by the end of 25th November 2011, the State budget revenue reached over VND186,000 billion, attaining 103 percent compared to the budget plan. This is considered a great success of Vietnam Customs in the context of economic turmoil and enterprises having difficulty with revenue. Practically, this is a consideration of the directors of the Customs sector to successfully reach this target. As the result of many strong measures and urging administration reform, the Customs sector has reached its target one month earlier than expected.
Explaining the achievement, leaders of the General Department of Customs cited several major reasons. Firstly, from the very beginning of the year, a series of policies restraining the import surplus of “luxurious” goods such as cars, liquor, cosmetics by increasing imported tax has raised revenue. In addition, a sharp difference between the price of gold in the country and in the world contributed extraordinarily to the first time of export surplus in Vietnam and to the customs revenue as well. The last reason is the exchange rate, in October alone, the exchange rate was VND 20,683 per USD, raising about VND5,000 billion of revenue, accounting for 17.3 percent.
The General Department of Customs has been currently directing all the forces against smuggling, improving operational measures, collecting and processing information; well understanding locals and organizing effectively many projects and cases such as: preventing illegal ore export; investigating enterprises and other subjects suspected for minerals export fraud, illegal minerals transport across borders, importing salt used for improper purpose; identifying Harmonized System (HS) code. In the period from October 16th 2011 to November 15th 2011, the entire Customs Service has revealed, arrested and handled 2,487 cases of violations, the value of which is estimated to be over VND 10 billion.
With its successful state budget contribution, the Customs Service is currently leading the Ministry of Finance in completing the target.
Le Hien
Vietnamese
