Automated system for Customs management and supervision: Shipping lines need to fully and accurately declare information

	Automated system for Customs management and supervision: Modern management and human resource streamlining
	On 1st March 2018, deploying automated system for Customs management at Phuoc Long ICD
	Accelerating to implement the automated system for Customs management

Lotus Port has deployed the automated system for Customs management and supervision. Photo: T.H

According to Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, implementing the pilot automated system for Customs management and supervision for imported and exported goods, goods in transit at seaports and international civil airports, the Department has officially deployed this system at 3 seaports from the beginning 2018 to present day.

During the implementation, some shipping lines, shipping agents and forwarders have declared insufficient information, affecting the Customs clearance. According to provisions of Article 66 Decree 08/ND-CP on the deadline for submitting Customs dossier, for the entry vessels, the manifest of imported goods, information on the House bill of lading shall be submitted not later than 12 hours before the estimated date when the vessels arrive at ports for less than 5 day shipping time; Not later than 24 hours before the estimated date when vessels arrive at ports within other shipping times.

However, in fact, many cargoes are discharged at ports but the declared information on the House bill of lading has not been shown in the e-manifest system. This causes difficulties for port operators. They must handle manually and consume a lot of time to apply for the goods management number for imported shipment instead of automatically receiving this information via the VASSCM system. The Customs software does not have any function to assist Customs officers of Exit/Entry Transport Means Customs Procedures Team and Customs Supervision Team to inspect and supervise the declared information.

The typical errors are false declaration of bill of lading, container number; the gross weight and gross weight unit are not declared in the house bills of lading. The system does not have the function to prevent duplicate declarations, leading to the situation that one dossier has been canceled, and one dossier has been cleared, but the two dossiers are still shown on the system.

Although Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has issued an Official letter on standardizing the method of E-Manifest declaration to instruct the shipping lines and shipping agents carrying out Customs procedures in Ho Chi Minh City. However, the E-Manifest declaration is implemented nationwide, thereby, some shipping lines and shipping agents have not grasped the deployment, leading to false declaration.

Because the information declared on the National Single Window is inconsistent with the actual information of goods entry or exit ports, thereby port operators have spent a lot of time to manually update this information instead of receiving from the system.

Besides, importers and exporters have not declared or falsely declared the goods management number in the declaration, meanwhile the VNACCS/VCIS system has no blocking function. In this case, the Customs and enterprises must collaborate and spend a lot of time to support importers and exporters in the Customs clearance.

Viet Nam Automated System For Seaport Customs Management (VASSCM) officially operated VCN - On the afternoon of 11th December 2017, at the headquarters of the Hai Phong Customs ...

Facing above obstacles, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department proposes that information on goods manifest, House bill of lading, etc., on the National Single Window must update closely the input information to limit the errors of the enterprises. The information such as container number must not be added with special characters; unit price and declared quantity must not be blank if including the House bill of lading. The system must block declarations with duplicated and incorrect information and automatically refuse this information for Customs declarants to declare again.

The General Department of Customs Department has issued an Official letter to instruct and request shipping lines, shipping agents and forwarders to accurately and fully declare information on the National Single Window Portal when carrying out Customs procedures.