Dong Nai Customs Department: Continuing to Strengthen Professional Training

1:54:33 PM | 8/10/2014

Under the light of the glorious tradition of Dong Nai Customs Department, all the staff of the department always unites to overcome all difficulties to build up a stronger customs sector to better serve reform and integration requirements of the country. Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Mr Le Van Danh, Director of Dong Nai Customs Department, on the department’s achievements. Van Luong reports.
Could you briefly describe the remarkable results of the Dong Nai Customs Department?
Administration reform and business support have been promoted and produced positive results, thus facilitating the business community to boost up export and import activities and helping the department fulfil its tax collection tasks. In 2013, the Dong Nai Customs Department collected 2.22 percent more than the amount of taxes assigned by the Ministry of Finance, which ranked sixth among all provinces and cities nationwide.
 
The department has won the absolute trust of sector leaders and gain the highest consensus of the business community.
 
By applying information technology to professional processes and publicly handling corrupt and red-tape civil servants, the department has not discovered any new civil servants in breach of working regulations.
 
After the test run of the Vietnam Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System (VNACCS/VCIS), how has this system officially operated at the Dong Nai Customs Department?
The Dong Nai Customs Department is one of the first in the country to apply the VNACCS/VCIS system since April 2014. Thus far, all units of the department have adopted this system.
 
The VNACCS/VCIS system, funded by the Government of Japan, has helped reduce the time required for cargo clearance for enterprises. However, because this is a modern customs system of Japan, Vietnamese companies will thus encounter certain difficulties at first. Hence, before the system was launched, the Dong Nai Customs Department organised training courses for local businesses, including customs brokerage agents. It also set up consulting units to support enterprises to carry out new procedures. So far, local businesses have been working well with the VNACCS/VCIS system.
 
Prime Minister has directed the customs sector to continue to speed up administrative reform to facilitate and better serve exporting, strengthen post-check inspection and monitoring, and build the Vietnamese customs sector towards modern international standards. How has the Dong Nai Customs Department deployed and carried out this direction?
The Dong Nai Customs Department has applied the VNACCS/VCIS e- customs clearance system and collected taxes through the data connection among the Customs Office, the State Treasury and Bank. This procedure eases taxpayers, shortens the time for customs clearance of goods and facilitates importing and exporting of local enterprises. At the same time, the department signed cooperation and coordination agreements on export management with quarantine and food safety inspection agencies to shorten the clearance time for businesses that import or export goods needed such quality checks.
 
The Dong Nai Customs Department holds some dialogue meetings with Taiwanese, Japanese and South Korean companies in the province to inform new policies and answer their questions to their problems.
 
In addition, the Dong Nai Customs Department has strengthened customs audits, organised internal inspection teams to prevent trade frauds and tax evasions.
Operating the VNACCS/VCIS system and enhancing risk management to effectively reduce document audits but still ensure enough information for the fight against smuggling and commercial fraudulence and risk management when electronic customs procedures are applied.
 
Deploying and expanding the scope of the electronic tax collection and payment modernisation project of Tax Office, the State Treasury, Customs Office and Financial Office. The project was carried out by the Ministry of Finance’s Steering Committee for Tax Collection and Payment Modernisation Project in cooperation with commercial banks. Tax data are synchronised with the VNACCS system.
 
The Dong Nai Customs Department will continue to strengthen professional training, foreign language training and computer skill training for civil servants to better fulfil new tasks.