Customs strengthens to fight against origin fraud

	General Department of Customs points out tricks of origin fraud and forgery
	Customs prevents origin fraud and protect intellectual property rights
	Customs sector detects many cases of origin fraud

Many methods and tricks of origin fraud were raised by Customs Control and Supervision Department at the meeting. Photo: Q.Hung

Earlier, on August 13, the General Department of Customs issued Official Letter 5189 / TCHQ-GSQL to direct municipal and provincial Customs to implement measures to strengthen management of the above areas.

The direction of the General Department of Customs was given on the basis of evaluating the situation of monitoring, management, supervision, control, post-clearance audit and inspection. Thereby, many methods and tricks of origin fraud, illegal labelling, infringement of intellectual property rights, illegal transit of imports and exports have been discovered.

In addition, major changes in trade policies towards trade protection such as tax increase, application of technical barriers to protect domestic production by countries in the region and in the world; and especially the US-China trade war, have had a great impact on Vietnam’s economy.

It is predicted that goods from countries subject to high tax rates will likely be illegally transited through Vietnam and have forged Vietnamese origin and then exported to big markets to avoid trade remedies.

This leads to the risk that Vietnamese export goods will be investigated and subject to anti-dumping tax, self-defence tax and subsidy tax by importing countries. This damages Vietnamese manufacturers, hurts their prestige in the international market and restricts exports to these markets.

According to the Customs Control and Supervision Department, the guidelines given at the official dispatch will be implemented on the basis of the current legal provisions relating to the origin of goods; labelling, protection of intellectual property rights, sanctioning of administrative violations. The Customs agency shall inspect and determine goods origin to apply special preferential tax rates according to international commitments on tariff preferences and management of labelling and protection of intellectual property rights for import and export goods; prevent origin frauds and illegal labelling, illegal transit of goods in the customs process and post-customs clearance audit

At the meeting, the Customs Control and Supervision Department synthesised the information and pointed out methods and tricks of origin fraud, illegal labelling, infringement of intellectual property rights, illegal transit of goods; guided the steps of inspection, supervision and control of goods origin and labelling, protection of intellectual property rights for goods exported and imported.

Cooperate with Customs authorities in other countries to verify origin fraud

According to a representative of the department, the strengthening of inspection and control measures to grasp the situation; raise awareness and enforcement of legal regulations on trade defence, rules of origin, labelling, protection of intellectual property rights for customs officers; at the same time, raising awareness of implementing legal documents of enterprises engaged in import and export activities and intensifying trainings to enterprises for compliance with the law.