A Customs Branch collected more than 10 trillion vnd

	Ho Chi Minh City Customs to collect 109,900 billion vnd
	Tax revenues exceeded the 2016 estimate by 9.3%
	Hanoi Customs Department must collect 20,650 billion vnd in 2017

Operational activities at the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port. Photo: T. Binh.

The revenues of the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III accounted for 24% of total revenues of the Hai Phong Customs Department (the Department is at 2nd rank in budget revenues).

In early 2017, a reporter of the Customs Newspaper came to the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III. The reporter was impressed by the urgent and busy working atmosphere in the approaching time of Tet holiday and Customs officers were encouraged by the outstanding results in 2016. Accordingly, the outstanding achievements have come from the efforts of the Hai Phong Customs Departments in reform, modernization, trade facilitation and improvement of the efficiency of State management on Customs.

Over the years, the Hai Phong Customs Department has been one of the few Departments to implement pilot programs of reform and modernization of the General Department of Vietnam Customs. Specifically, the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III has been the unit directly implementing important contents, such as: Pilot application of barcode reading devices in monitoring container, collaboration with port businesses in surveillance of imported and exported goods (under Article 41 of the Customs Law); and establishment of specialized inspection stations at border gates.

Regarding the contents mentioned above, the Manager of the Customs Branch, Mr. Nguyen Duy Ngoc said: “They are the major programs of the Customs and the mission of the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III to accomplish well”.

Import and export activities at Green Port. Photo: T. Binh.

But after investigation, the reporter of the Customs Newspaper found that in addition to implementing the assigned tasks as Mr. Nguyen Duy Ngoc said, the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III collected the biggest revenues in the Hai Phong Customs Department as well as improving the efficiency of State management and facilitating import-export activities. Mr. Nguyen Duy Ngoc shared: One of the achievements that the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III made was to provide the "Working Handbook" from 2014.

According to Mr. Nguyen Duy Ngoc, based on the specific mission and function of Customs officers, the "Working Handbook" has outlined out the whole operations and tasks of each Customs officer in specific locations. Specifically, the "Working Handbook" included guidelines for Customs officers to understand and apply appropriately. In addition, new Customs officers can take advantage of the "Working Handbook" to grasp fundamental requirements in a new working position (notes for some specific commodities such as cosmetics, functional foods, wood and so on).

The "Working Handbook" is considered to be a major step in the reform of Customs procedures, reducing Customs clearance time and creating favourable conditions for Customs authorities and businesses; gradually building the image of Customs officers of "Professionalism - Transparency - Efficiency". Earlier, at the meeting of the Director General of the General Department of Vietnam Customs with the Hai Phong Customs Department on 7th June 2016, after hearing reports about initiatives in making the “Working Handbook”, the Director General requested the Hai Phong Customs Department to study and build the “Working Handbook” for the whole of Customs (which is currently implemented).

Another initiative of the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III was to to build an internal website to lookup problems related to operational processes (licenses, specialized inspection regulations and other information). A representative of the Customs Branch said in order to search Customs procedures easily (intellectual property; coercive debt; the list of drugs, cosmetics, and category of goods), the Customs Branch has been actively building an internal website to help Customs officers to lookup all problems related to export and import goods. When accessing the website, Customs officers only need to use some basic information such as the number of containers, bill number or tax identification number of the company to look up all the information and relevant problems. Through the website, Customs officers can easily lookup and tightly control shipments while saving costs and reducing the time of Customs clearance of goods.

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In addition to these initiatives, in order to facilitate the business community, the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone III has also focused on the construction of mechanism and regulations to resolve problems of enterprises; regulations on the management, internal control and accountability of Customs officers and civil servants on duty. Accordingly, all operations of Customs officers and civil servants must comply with current regulations and procedures. In the case where problems arise, Customs officers should report immediately to the leaders at all levels. The specific regulations and mechanism for internal management will help leaders at all levels control the entire operations of Customs officers in a timely fashion, not to allow backlogs and congestion at port, claims or negative reflection of enterprises, creating favourable conditions for enterprises in the field of import-export activities.