Cashew exporting enterprises proposed to reduce procedures in C/O issuance

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Cashew exporters proposed to remove difficulties for export. Photo: N.H

Simplifying procedures for issuing C/O

Mr Ta Quang Huyen, General Director of Hoang Son Company - an enterprise in the field of cashew nut processing and export - said that in the past, the Government and ministries made great efforts to simplify import and export procedures, enhance transparency in trade policies, and at the same time are willing to listen and promptly support our businesses to solve difficulties and problems.

At the end of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam worked with the Ministry of Commerce of Cambodia to help cashew nut export and processing enterprises to solve the problem of issuing C/O form E for raw cashews imported from Cambodia into Vietnam to process and export to China.

Accordingly, in the past, Vietnamese companies that imported cashews from Cambodia were granted a form D after processing and manufacturing; if they wanted to export to China, they had to do more procedures to self-certify the origin of their products. So it took more time, affecting the export speed and timely delivery to partners on the Chinese side.

Currently, the above problems have been solved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Vietnamese enterprises have been directly issued C/O form E by the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce for raw cashew imports for processing, simplifying procedures and reducing administrative time for cashew businesses to export to other countries such as China, Malaysia, Thailand, etc, within the framework of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement.

However, according to Mr Huyen, cashew exporters are facing many difficulties in implementing and meeting policies in import and export activities, especially in the past year, when world economic growth has shown signs of slowing down due to global tightening monetary policy.

In particular, the current issuance of C/O certification of origin is still time-consuming and complicated regarding documents when enterprises request. In addition, the Customs also sanctioned even some enterprises in the cashew export processing industry for making C/O which is not following the origin regulations.

Meanwhile, C/O is not a mandatory document in the export dossier; only some customers have the request, and the enterprise will carry out the procedures to apply for a full set of documents to meet the delivery standards for customers.

Whether the customer requests C/O or not, the enterprise still only sells goods at the same price, does not earn any more profit from applying for C/O, and even wastes time, human resources and costs to implement when requested by the customer.

Therefore, cashew exporters expect VCCI to be the authority to issue certificates of origin, consider simplifying records and documents when enterprises request C/O, create basis mechanisms to help businesses still comply with export regulations but minimize the time of administrative procedures, speed up the export of goods, timely delivery of commodities and documents, progress of partners importing goods from Vietnam.

Maintaining export

Not only facing problems with C/O, cashew businesses also face some difficulties when exporting cashews. According to businesses, from 2022 until now, central banks worldwide mostly have to increase interest rates to control inflation. This leads to a tightening of the money supply, a decrease in the growth rate of the global economy, an increase in unemployment and a tightening of consumer spending. As a result, worldwide consumption demand is severely affected, and the export of cashew to the U.S., Europe, Australia, Japan and the Middle East has been seriously reduced.

Many cashew businesses in 2022 suffered losses and even had to suspend export production because they could not accept losses to retain customers and maintain jobs for workers. In addition, interest rates in Vietnam also increased, causing production costs to increase, along with limited credit room and more difficult conditions for disbursing bank loans, which made it more and more difficult for cashew processing companies to compete in terms of prices with other countries' companies.

Enterprises recommend leaders of People's Committees of provinces and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry to propose to the Government and the State Bank to create favourable conditions for supporting interest rates and conditions for accessing loans. So export processing and production enterprises can reduce production costs, take the initiative in cash flow, reduce costs, and increase competitiveness with other exporters worldwide.

This will help businesses find customers at competitive prices, stabilize production, maintain jobs for workers, and bring in foreign currency revenue for the country.