Customs always accompanies with South Korean enterprises

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Mr. Vu Van Hai, Deputy Director of Legal Department under the General Department of Customs.

Over the past time, Customs has implemented many programs to exchange and solve problems for the South Korean business community, what is your assessment on achieved results?

With the objective of constantly improving the capacity and efficiency of state management on customs, creating favorable conditions for people and businesses, Customs has always identified the administrative reform as a central political task, which is carried out regularly and continuously from the development to implementation of institutions. In particular, customs operations are increasingly associated with enterprise’s operation, the image Customs officers are improved and appreciated by the business community.

In particular, the reform of customs procedures has achieved practical results and developed partnerships and cooperation with enterprises. In the recent years, Customs has regularly held dialogue conferences so that the business community has a chance to reflect upon problems on mechanisms and policies of import-export management, customs procedures and attitude of customs officers on duty performance.

By this measure, the General Department of Customs and the local Customs departments have promptly removed many problems for enterprises and grasped more useful information for the Customs administrative reform, and quickly and strictly handled the negative acts of Customs officers.

After each dialogue conference with the South Korean business community, held annually by the Ministry of Finance in the north and south, some documents on customs procedures and tax administration have been amended, supplemented and newly promulgated in order to facilitate enterprises towards transparency and minimizing the Customs clearance time, reducing costs and improving the competitiveness for the business community.

How has Customs responded to the proposals by the South Korean business community, Sir?

In fact, the Customs procedures are diverse with many import and export regimes, thus arising problems that may affect the customs clearance time are unavoidable. However, these problems are solved transparently and publicly in unified understanding and in accordance with the law.

In order to facilitate the information exchange between Customs and the business community, before, during and after each dialogue conference, Customs has promptly responded to the arising problems, thereby removing difficulties and obstacles for enterprises in the implementation of customs procedures and ensuring the lawful compliance of enterprises.

Especially, after each annual dialogue conference with South Korean enterprises, the General Department of Customs has renovated more comprehensively on the management mode and accelerated the reform of administrative procedures, customs procedures and import and export tax policies in line with the process of economic integration towards a stable, transparent and healthy economic environment, and in accordance with international treaties and free trade agreements, Customs law, law on import and export duties and other relevant laws.

In particular, Customs has always improved legal systems and legal basis to carry out the National Single Window mechanism for the purpose of reducing the clearance time and saving costs for enterprises in compliance with the development of international trade; renovated the customs procedures in the direction of publicity and transparency and creating maximum convenience for import-export enterprises. In addition, the General Department of Customs has been advising the Ministry of Finance and other competent agencies to promulgate decrees, decisions and circulars to improve the customs institutions.

What are the plans by customs to promptly grasp comments on the policies of import and export management, specialized management, tax policies and customs procedures from South Korean enterprises in the coming time?

Through dialogue conferences, Customs has grasped and solved difficulties and problems in the implementation of customs procedures at border gates and propagated new legal documents and regulations for enterprises to understand and follow in the implementation of import-export procedures; thereby step by step improving the sense of law compliance of the business community and enhancing the cooperation between Customs and enterprises in executing the law on anti-smuggling, trade fraud and creating a healthy business environment.

Customs continues to develop and promulgate documents and customs procedures in compliance with new regulations in legal documents in the direction of transparency and concretization of responsibilities of customs officers, so that enterprises can also monitor customs officers when performing their duties.

Customs will continue to recommend and coordinate with ministries and agencies to implement solutions to improve the efficiency of the specialized inspection through the increase in procedures handled via National Single Window and ASEAN Single Window; review, cut and simplify procedures and lists of goods subject to specialized inspection, enhance the shift from pre-inspection to post-inspection, widely apply risk management in inspection and implement the mutual recognition of specialized inspection results among countries.

In order to further enhance the effectiveness of information exchange between customs and the business community, especially South Korean enterprises, the Ministry of Finance (Customs) continues to enhance IT application in customs management to restrict the direct contact between customs officers and enterprises. At the same time, developing a system of internal control regulations, strengthening anti-corruption measures and strictly punishing customs officers who have negative acts and harassment behaviour.

HCM City Customs guided and answered many questions from Korean enterprises VCN - More than 150 South Korean companies attended the dialogue meeting with the HCM City Customs ...

Enterprises should be more active in studying relevant legal provisions, as well as giving feedback on difficulties and obstacles in law enforcement. At the same time, actively contributing and introducing solutions to management agencies in developing, amending and supplementing laws related to tax and customs policies in order to ensure the feasibility, fairness, transparency, clarity and simplicity of legal laws. Thereby, solving problems and propose to a higher level for solving problems arising under the authority in a timely fashion. In addition, enterprises need to pay attention to the human resource in charge of Customs procedures. They need to be trained professionally. If they do not understand clearly the regulations on import and export procedures, authorized customs agents will be selected. Because if the procedures are not processed by authorized agents, they will be abused, which badly affects the enterprises.

Thank you very much,