The General Department of Customs said 20 local customs departments have applied e-commerce procedures and more than 51,000 enterprises registered to use them as of end-February 2012. As many as 600,000 customs procedures were done electronically, accounting for 95.5 percent of total declarations. This form accounted 93.4 percent of export and import value, or US$36.8 billion. These figures show the degree of response by Vietnamese businesses to e-customs advantages like lower costs, and less time and fewer work-hours required. But, Vietnam lacks a complete decree on e-customs procedures. Thus, the Ministry of Finance sent Document 1921/BTC-TCHQ on a project of drafting the E-customs procedure decree to submit to the Prime Minister for approval.
The overall aim of this project is to address and limit flaws in e-customs declaration. The clearly and fully defined regulations in legal documents are essential because they will be easily understandable to both companies and customs agencies. For that reason, the “e-customs declaration provision” in the draft decree not only catches the interest and attention of businesses, but also receives a lot of feedback and comments from local customs agencies.
In the draft decree, the “e-customs declaration provision” (Article 9) specifies in detail what a customs declarer is allowed to do and what cases are permitted for correction and supplementation. But, some customs agencies recommended changes to better suit actual conditions.
Most local customs representatives, especially in major customs hubs like Hai Phong, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, said a one-time full declaration is necessary to save time in case of examination.
Nevertheless, to support businesses, the draft decree clearly specifies the duration of 60 days for correction and supplementation. This is a new method which is more beneficial to businesses than traditional forms. In reality, errors and omissions do occur with the name of importers and exporters, value, exchange rate, and specification. Hence, the correction and supplementation are necessary for enterprises. According to Binh Duong Customs Department, the duration for correction and supplementation needs further consideration, because it may surpass 60 days in case it relates to tax issues.
In addition, experts also recommended using clearly defined and precise wording in a legal document with a broad scope of enforcement. For instance, it is necessarily to revise the phrase “submit and show documents” as it is unclear whether it is referring to electronic or paper documents.
Le Hien
Vietnamese
