Ben Tre Customs Branch officially puts into operation

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Leaders of Ben Tre Province and leaders of Long An Customs Department awarded the decision on establishment and gaveflowers to Ben Tre Customs Branch. Photo: Nguyen Hue

Ben Tre Customs Branch was established under Decision No. 1868/QD / BTC dated September 19, 2019 of the Minister of Finance on upgrading Ben Tre Customs Technical Team under the My Tho Seaport Customs Branch of Long An Customs Department.

Ben Tre Customs Branch will perform State management on Customs for import and export goods in Ben Tre province; prevent and combat smuggling and trade fraud in import and export activities according to provisions of the Customs Law and related laws; and instruct enterprises on tax and management policies for each type of goods, supporting enterprises in carrying out procedures for customs clearance quickly and conveniently.

At the ceremony, Chairman of Ben Tre People's Committee Cao Van Trong said the establishment of Ben Tre Customs Branch is an urgent requirement to meet the needs of socio-economic development and satisfies the long-term expectations of the business community in the province, facilitating enterprises in implementing procedures for customs clearance quickly, cutting time and costs for import and export activities, especially to facilitate to boost investment and improve the business investment environment.

According to Trong, the upgrading from the Technical Team to the Ben Tre Customs Branch will help the province remove difficulties in carrying out customs procedures related to import and export activities of enterprises in and outside industrial zones in the province, especially dossiers and procedures related to the Customs Branch will be handled on the spot and enterprises will not have to implement procedures at My Tho Seaport Customs Branch and other branches.

Thus, Trong said the decision on upgrading the Ben Tre Customs Technical Team into Ben Tre Customs Branch has great importance and marks more completion of the customs system in the province to contribute to promoting reforms, perfecting institutions and legal documents with a focus on the reform of organisational restructure. At the same time, it will complete import and export targets set out in the 10th Party Committee Resolution of Ben Tre province.

Currently, Ben Tre has two industrial parks and three industrial clusters that have been put into operation and enterprises of the province have made quite strong developments not only in scale but also in quantity. The province plans to focus on building and putting into operation new industrial parks and industrial clusters, contributing to attracting more enterprises, especially enterprises producing export items to boost the province's growth and import and export turnover.

Since the establishment of Ben Tre Customs Technical Team in 2016, the import and export turnover in the province only exceeded US$1,060 million, but after the two years, it increased to $1,554 million in 2018, up 47 percent compared to 2016, two years earlier than the province's target of reaching $1,500 million by 2020.

With the available potential, geographical position and increasing development of the province, especially the increasing number of enterprises, management activities of the State apparatus must be improved according to modern directions, with timely service and high quality, contributing to supporting enterprises in developing their productions, expanding markets, consuming products abroad. Stemming from that requirement, the leaders of Ben Tre province committed that the provincial government will coordinate, support and create the most favourable conditions for Ben Tre Customs Branch to operate.

Deputy Director of Long An Customs Department, Nguyen Van Khanh said Long An Customs Department has prepared conditions to deploy the operation of the branch on the basis of inheriting current infrastructure and technical conditions of Ben Tre Customs Technical Team and add two more customs officers and working facilities as required. Regarding organisational structure, the branch has two leaders and five officers. In the first time of operation, Ben Tre Customs Branch will continue to work at the headquarters of the current Ben Tre Customs Technical Team.

“After the ceremony, Ben Tre Customs Branch will immediately perform tasks to serve enterprises, on the basis of inheriting and transferring data from the Ben Tre Customs Technical Team to ensure smooth and effective operation,” Khanh said.