Adding Risk Management contents to the amended Customs Law that the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam plans to introduce to the public for opinions in January 2014 is a breakthrough, according to experts.
Every day, the Customs Risk Management Department has to perform assessment on over 50,000 exporters and importers as stipulated by the laws and based on operating practices of customs sector in Vietnam: All exports and imports must be tested. The examination is based on information analysis, law compliance of goods owners and legal risk.
Urgent requirement
In the Customs Development Strategy towards 2020, the Government also requested that customs officers engaged in procedures, inspection and supervision must apply all customs management methods based on the compliance to the following pillars: Collecting, processing information, managing risks and imposing post-clear checks.
After analysing and evaluating tonnes of information related to businesses, commodities, routes and other factors, customs authorities will screen to implement procedures in the most effective way. They do not equate law-observing enterprises with those with the high potentiality of fraud and risk.
Mr Bui Quang Thai, Deputy Director of the General Department of Customs, said, in modern customs management, the application of risk management methods is regarded as an important step. Risk management can identify subjects with potential risk of smuggling, trade fraud and tax evasion for customs authorities to take effectively preventive measures while creating favourable conditions for enterprises to abide by customs laws.
Risk management also creates fundamental changes in customs management methods, from manual to automated risk assessment. Risk management greatly reduces the actual rate of inspected goods (from examination of most export shipments (in 2005) to less than 11.46 percent at present, thus helping simplifying procedures, reducing time for customs clearance and expenses for companies in import - export customs clearance.
Besides, risk management is a crucial component for operating Vietnam Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System and Vietnam Customs Information System (VNACCS/VCIS) funded by the Government of Japan and deployed in April 1, 2014.
Heavy responsibility
Deployed since 2005, implementing risk management measures is an urgent requirement. According to practice, it is very important to organise and build database and useful company information, analyse and screen information timely and accurately to prevent increasingly sophisticated tactics of smugglers.
In fact, to impose the green flow (free from customs clearance check), customs authorities have to investigate, monitor, screen and assess information about companies, goods, routes and other aspects in a long time with a lot of different criteria prior to the process of customs clearance.
Besides, intelligence is always considered a key and an integral part of risk management works. However, today, the concepts of customs information and professional customs information together with the implementation of these works have not been defined in the Customs Law. This has led to the inconsistent understanding and application of intelligence, to the dispersed gathering and processing of professional information, and to insufficient information and data for customs operations as well as risk management.
In addition, documents related to risk management regulations are not clear enough and adequate enough for the application of risk management of international standards and practices. In particular, these documents do not clearly define rights and obligations of companies for the provision of information to customs authorities, resulting in insufficient legal framework for collecting company information to manage and assess law compliance of import-export activities as the assessment is based on professional information systems, on automatically integrated and processed company data, and on customs information and data.
These issues are stated in the Customs Law. Risk management will be certainly brought to a new level, featured by professionalism and law compliance of enterprises. This will also give a helping hand to customs modernisation programmes like e-customs programme or single-window mechanism.
D.L
Vietnamese
