Fixing VNACCS/VCIS System Problems

Nearly five months after official deployment, the Vietnam Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System and the Vietnam Customs Information System (VNACCS/VCIS) has produced efficiency, helped reduce the time required for doing customs procedures. However, existing barriers, though minor, have certain influence on the efficiency of the system. The General Department of Vietnam Customs is listening to feedback and problems raised by enterprises and is promptly taking measures to address these issues.

 

Some companies complained that they found it difficult to seek certifications to exports passed customs supervision because they did not only need certification by State employee at the service but also need the certification from the head of responsible customs agency. According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, this measure only aims to strengthen management, prevent cross-border trade fraud, and manage temporarily imported goods for re-export or exported agricultural and aquatic products of high-risk entities. As for aquatic products exported by sea or by air, the General Department of Vietnam Customs does not require the certification of the head of responsible customs agency when exports pass the monitoring area.

 

In explaining to the fact that customs officers have not issue certification for exports passed the monitoring area and this disables the system approval for declaration papers, the General Department of Vietnam Customs blamed on instable operations of the newly activated system. To make sure that all declaration forms which have passed the monitoring area are verified by the system, the general department requested all customs units to accurately update cargo certification results to the system.

 

The general department had answers to complaints relating the limit of 50 lines on declaration forms, many declaration criteria, and late update of companies’ tax payment information. Recently, the GDC introduced more solutions to deal with VNACCS/VCIS problems. In answer to the complaint that companies have to use a lot of papers to print customs declaration forms because each side of paper only describes one product line, the GDC has worked with NTT Data Company - a Japanese company that supplies VNACCS/VCIS system to resolve the issue.

 

In reply to difficulties pertaining to inconsistent storage location codes and port codes which raise difficulties to companies in fulfilling declaration forms, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said, after the system was officially deployed, storage location codes and port codes might be different from those before the system was launched. However, code changes were already updated at the GDC’s website (www.customs.gov.vn). Thus far, location codes and customs unit codes are consistent country-wide. The GDC will check and update if enterprises find any wrong codes.

 

Some outsourcing and export production companies complained about difficulties in tax grace review (275 days) on export production forms rejected by the VNACCS/VCIS system. The GDC said the tax grace period was rejected by the system because of erroneous updating to the system. To address this problem, the GDC directed local customs bureaus to check and fully and accurately update information on businesses to the system. Regarding liquidity failure, the GDC blamed on unsynchronised data in data exchange between the old and new systems (from E-Cus V4 to E-Cus V5). The GDC guided the Information Technology and Customs Statistics Department and Customs Supervision Department to build a business support system to implement liquidity on the VNACCS/VCIS system.

From August 11 to 13, the GDC convened qualified, experienced civil servants to take part in a programme on reviewing and resolving problems of the VNACCS/VCIS system and draft documents on solutions, which will be submitted to the GDC General Director for publication.