This is the way the customs sector continues to go after the successful first phase implementation of Government-backed Scheme 30 on administrative reform.
To date, 20 out of 33 customs departments applied e-customs with the participation of more than 60,000 businesses, announced 239 sets of customs administrative procedures (44 sets are of priority), collected State budgets via commercial banks, and cooperated with the State Treasury and tax authorities to facilitate tax payment by enterprises.
Continued administrative procedure streamlining
According to the General Department of Customs, one of outstanding results of public administration reform is a better legal document system, including the Customs Law and instructive documents, which is gradually approaching international standards. At the request of the Government’s Resolution 25/NQ-CP and Resolution 68/NQ-CP, the General Department of Customs generalised, reviewed, built, amended and supplemented a variety of legal documents, laws and customs procedures. 19 out of 27 administrative reform plans, or 70 percent, were executed. After the Finance Minister issued the Decision 1904/QD-BTC dated August 10, 2009 on the list of 239 customs procedures, including 15 procedures at general department level, 27 procedures at provincial/municipal department level, and 197 procedures at sub-department level, the customs sector announced the list of procedures and picked up 44 priority procedures, of which 20 procedures were retained and 22 were amended.
According to the plan for the second phase of administrative reform, the customs sector will continue with the following contents: simplifying procedures, eliminating unnecessary procedures, promoting information technology application, and boosting transparency. Particularly with respect to procedural simplification, it will focus on reducing paperwork, and costs.
Perfecting regulations customs procedures
Public administration reform aims to facilitate commercial activities but the customs sector also attaches great importance to management of import, export, entry and exit activities. To improve the efficiency of monitoring imports and exports, the sector will invest in modern equipment, and deploy e-customs procedures in most units with 60,000 companies registering to use the modern service. Presently, modern container scanners funded by Japan were installed at Cat Lai Port (Ho Chi Minh City), Hai Phong Port (Hai Phong City), and Lao Bao Border Gate (Quang Tri Province). These facilities help boost capabilities and bring the customs sector to the level of regional countries.
In the coming time, the customs sector sets key reform, modernisation and development tasks through 2015, specifically completing regulations on customs procedures to simplify documents and procedures; reducing procedural stages; using e-customs methods in lieu of manual ones (adding regulations on electronisation, ensuring simplicity, harmony and compliance with the provisions of Revised Kyoto Convention and other norms of the World Customs Organization). Currently, the sector is urgently deploying the Vietnam Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System (VNACCS) and the Vietnam Customs Information System (VCIS) using Japanese customs technologies (to be carried out in two years, from April 2012 to March 2014). This modern system will basically change Vietnam’s customs management methods to electronics from manual.
The customs sector will continue building and supplementing legal regulations and implement the ASEAN Single-window Customs mechanism in 2012, and bilateral and multilateral trade agreements signed from 2011 to 2015; amend and supplement regulations on customs personnel apparatus at different levels, check post-clearance in accordance with the international Post Clearance Audit (PCA), which are expected gradually replace the current customs checking procedures by 2015.
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