Ba Ria - Vung Tau Customs: Strong support for enterprises

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The number of enterprises directly implementing the procedures at the Phu My Border Gate Customs Sub-department is quite small because they have submitted dossiers through the online public-service system. Photo: D.N

Find a common voice

In the first quarter of 2017, there were about 600 enterprises carrying out procedures at the sub-departments under the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Customs Department, up over 5%, with more than 20,400 sets of declarations, up by 16%; and turnover reached over $US 3 billion, of which export turnover increased by over 30%; Budget revenue was over 3,350 billion vnd, up by 87% over the same period in 2016.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Cam Van, representative of PetroVietnam Oil Corporation (PV Oil), said: "At the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Customs Department, operational activities relating to Customs procedures and associating with the operation of the Corporation were concerned by the implementing divisions, helping to reduce Customs clearance time for our Corporation a lot. Many problems arising were complicated and involved many ministries and branches; the Vung Tau Port Customs sub-department and the Corporation negotiated and settled problems together and jointly proposed if the problem exceeded their powers. "

In addition to solving problems arising daily in the process of carrying out procedures, consultation conferences are also researched and deployed by units in accordance with each content and topic to help enterprises and Customs agencies to further understand and share in each other's work. The Cai Mep border gate Customs sub-department has held a consultative conference on procedures for Customs supervision and goods loading and unloading among the Customs agencies, port enterprises and import and export enterprises at the Cai Mep port. Though this conference, all problems of port enterprises and import and export enterprises when implementing Customs procedures in recent times were answered thoroughly. Especially, port enterprises, import and export enterprise and Customs agencies negotiated and consented the time and procedures to ensure to reduce Customs clearance time and ensure the effectiveness of management. It is expected that in the coming time, the Cai Mep border gate Customs sub-department will continue to hold more consultative conferences with different topics such as determination of dutiable value and settlement reports.

Regarding consultations, Mr. Ly Minh Khoi, Director of Phu My Border Gate Customs Sub-department stated that the Sub-Department will conduct consultations with enterprises on the topics of processing enterprises and bonded warehouse enterprises this weekend. Through discussions with enterprises in these two types, the Sub-Department received feedback that the consultation is very necessary, through consultations, the problems will continue to be solved and it is most important that enterprises and Customs agencies sit together and find a common voice in the work performance of each party.

Enterprises implementing procedures at Cai Mep - Ba Ria - Vung Tau Port border Customs sub-departments Photo: D.N.

Efficiency from online public services

After 2 months of the pilot, from March 01, 2017, along with Customs, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Customs Department has officially launched an online public service, replacing the previous manual method. Mr. Bui Sy Duc, Deputy Director of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Customs Department, said: "From March 01, 2017 onwards, enterprises have completely submitted electronic dossiers via the system without submitting paper dossiers, and simultaneously used a digital signature to sign in files of the records and submit them to the Customs agencies in the system. According to the initial feedback of enterprises, this implementation has saved time and costs of Customs clearance, thereby contributing to increase the competitiveness of enterprises". From the beginning of March to now, there were about 150 dossiers submitted via the online public service system, including tax returns; goods on entry, goods on transit, brought into or out of transit ports; cancellation of declarations and additional declaration of tax in the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Customs Department. All the documents have been handled in time, all enterprises have been satisfied and there were no problems affecting the progress of clearance.

Mr. Le Minh Khoa, in charge of Customs procedures of Pomina 3 Steel JSC, said that the application of the online public service system has shortened the time for enterprises, many previous procedures took a lot of time such as cancellation of the declarations, but it only takes a few minutes at present. When implementing the pilot, the Phu My Port Customs Sub-Department guided in detail and answered all questions of our company as well as other companies, so that it will be smooth upon official implementation.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Nguyet, in charge of liquidity of All Wells International Vietnam Company Limited stated that when implementing the online public services, her company actively prepared documents and data for scanning to submit via the system and then waited for response and settlement of sub-departments, so reducing 50% of time compared to the past and the Company was also more active in transferring files to the system.

Especially, in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Customs Department, the deployment of application of online public services has helped oil and gas enterprises as well as enterprises having import-export relations with oil and gas enterprises save time and costs. For oil and gas enterprises, the import value is often very large and the value of tax refund is not small, so the shortened tax time through online public service is also the most obvious cost saving. Mrs. Nguyen Thi Cam Van, of PV Oil added that when the company implemented online public services, tax refund time has been shortened because the company actively prepared dossiers and monitored the settlement progress of dossiers, reducing the travel time. The tax refunds of the company are processed quickly, which will help companies manage better in difficult economic conditions.

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However, enterprises as well as Customs sub-departments have frankly said that interface of the current online public service system is difficult to see and language is not unified, causing difficulties for users. The system does not have the statistical function and report dossiers available on the system, and for the administrative procedures, which have been completed, the system is still pending, causing overload. The Ba Ria - Vung Tau Customs Department said that they will study and recognize the problems arising in the implementation of online public services so that this implementation will bring the highest benefits to enterprises as well as improve the efficiency of State management in Customs in the province.