Customs Clearance Guarantee for Importing, Exporting Goods - Leverage for Trade
Vietnam Business Forum had an interview with Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh, Deputy General Director of Customs, regarding the issue of guaranteeing customs clearance for importing and exporting goods. Le Hien reports.
Could you share on the advantages of customs clearance guarantee for importing and exporting goods for Vietnamese enterprises and the economy?
The Vietnamese economy is integrating increasingly deeply into the world economy, many bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements have been signed, requiring state management agencies to step up the reform, modernization and improvement of Vietnam's business environment in order to support and create conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to expand their markets and access regional and global markets. Facilitating enterprises in import and export is done by ensuring that the business environment and competitiveness reach the average level of ASEAN 3 by 2020, in which time for customs clearance of goods across the border is less than 36 hours for exporting goods and less than 41 hours for importing goods under the direction of the Vietnamese Government.
In order to achieve the above goal, one of the requirements is that Vietnam needs to firmly carry out structural reform and apply appropriate management methods to facilitate trade and quick customs clearance. The customs clearance mechanism has been applied by a number of developed countries in the world such as the US, Canada, Japan, and others. This will be a tool to help customs authorities enhance management capacity, consolidate tax collection activities, and prevent trade fraud and violation of customs laws.
For specialized management agencies, the guarantee will help to reduce administrative procedures, save human resources in management, reduce pressure on solving administrative procedures before customs clearance, without creating bad impacts on the specialized management functions; For enterprises, the guarantee will shorten clearance time, release goods, reduce costs, soon bring goods into production, and offer more choices of tax guarantee units beside current commercial banks. At the same time, it also contributes to enhancing the self-sufficiency and law compliance of enterprises; For insurance organizations, the guarantee will add a new business method, contributing to improving business efficiency and developing insurance market in Vietnam.
Recognizing the benefits brought about by the customs clearance guarantee, the Prime Minister issued Decision 1254/QD-TTg dated September 26, 2018 on "Approving the Action Plan to promote the National Single Window, ASEAN Single Window, specialized inspection reform of importing and exporting goods and trade facilitation 2018 - 2020" and assigned the Ministry of Finance to develop a pilot scheme to implement the guarantee for a number of exporting and importing goods subject to specialized inspection
In which ways will the guarantee be implemented?
This is a completely new management model that has a significant impact on insurance activities, customs procedures and the specialized management of ministries and branches. With the support of the Global Trade Facilitation Alliance (GATF), the study of the feasibility of the customs clearance mechanism has been carried out by the General Department of Customs and other ministries and agencies (Government Office, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development). Many steps have been taken such as making a survey of models of customs clearance guarantee in the United States, learning from the experiences of some countries, and participating in working sessions and discussions organized by GATF with import-export businesses and insurance enterprises. The scope of application also needs to be studied extensively, it should not only be limited to specialized inspection but instead should extend to the area of tax payment or guarantees in late submission of some customs documents (such as certificates of origin; export and import licenses; specialized inspection results), guarantees to ensure the management of customs supervision for goods exempted from tax, or guarantees to clear customs when there is inconsistency in codes, values, management policies between customs agencies and businesses.
Therefore, in order to ensure the legal basis and progress of implementation, soon apply the customs clearance mechanism for exporting and importing goods in customs procedures, facilitate trade activities, reduce the time for customs clearance, while ensuring the supervision and management of customs authorities, the General Department of Customs will make a proposal in which the Ministry of Finance report to the Government to develop an Action plan with a Resolution on the experimental implementation of the customs clearance guarantee mechanism for exporting and importing goods, which then will be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and approval; On that basis, the Ministry of Finance will develop legal documents to submit to the Government for detailed implementation regulations.
When is the best time to apply customs clearance guarantee mechanism for exporting and importing goods?
At the Conference, Mr. Eric Miller, Senior Consultant of GATF, said that Vietnam was the first country where GATF carried out the the project of insurance clearance in 2016. In September 2018, the Prime Minister also approved the design of an experimental program of customs clearance guarantee. Currently, the project team is working closely with the General Department of Customs and the Insurance Supervision Administration, as well as private insurance companies and import-export companies. GATF believes that a package of specific solutions to carry out the program will soon be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration in the future.
GATF experts also said that in the United States, the customs clearance guarantee reduced the administrative costs by 0.1-0.5%, and clearance costs by 0.5-0.8% of the value of the shipment, while increasing competition and promoting export growth by about 1%.
Currently, in some European and American countries, customs clearance guarantee has been expanded and become an effective tool in facilitating import and export trade, promoting relevant services in trade as well as specialized trade activities such as bonded warehouses, foreign trade zones or free trade zones and manufacturing and processing facilities.
Thank you very much!
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