Enterprises accompany the process of Customs reform and modernization

Quang Ninh Customs Department organize a meeting with enterprises in 2022. Photo: N.Hòa

Carry out procedures anytime, anywhere

One day at the end of 2022, we visited Garment 10 Corporation (Long Bien district, Hanoi) - a leading enterprise with a long tradition in the country's garment industry. However, what caught our eyes was the bustling atmosphere of the production lines.

Mr Than Duc Viet, General Director, shared that, overcoming many difficulties and challenges, in 2022, the Corporation achieved positive results in production and business activities, especially the scale of export turnover witnessed good growth, reaching about US$350 million, of which export was about US$250 million.

"To achieve that result, besides enterprises' efforts, it must mention the effectiveness in administrative procedure reform and customs modernization activities, including digital transformation activities to help import and export operations of the Corporation to become more convenient, creating prestige with foreign partners", Mr Than Duc Viet said.

Accordingly, the implementation of customs procedures is increasingly convenient. In particular, with the VNACCS/VCIS system, businesses can make customs declarations anytime, anywhere, as long as they have a computer connected to the internet. "This is crucial to help businesses reduce time and costs in carrying out customs procedures, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted import and export activities. In particular, it worked effectively during the more than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the social distancing was applied," May 10's General Director said.

Having many years of working in the field of import and export, Mrs Pham Huong Giang - Director of the Logistics Department (Thai Tan Transport and Trading Co., Ltd.), also expressed her impression of the reform and modernization results of the Customs sector. "We are a large enterprise in importing and exporting raw materials for beer and beverage products with a scale of up to about 1,000 import and export declarations per year. To operate effectively, a huge contribution comes from the modernization process of the Customs sector. Typically, the implementation of tax payment via commercial banks by electronic method 24/7," Mrs Pham Huong Giang said.

For the benefit of the business community

Sharing with reporters, Director of Customs IT and Statistics Department (General Department of Vietnam Customs) Le Duc Thanh said that the reform and facilitation for businesses, including promoting IT applications for digital transformation, has been one of the critical tasks of the Customs sector for many years.

Up to now, mechanisms and policies to create the foundation for the promotion of IT applications in the Customs sector have been increasingly improved in prioritizing and facilitating the implementation of electronic procedures.

"Currently, the workload of the Customs sector is huge, multiplying year by year. This includes the growth rate of import and export is from 10% to 15% per year, in 2022, total import and export turnover reached over US$700 billion for the first time. Every year, the Customs sector performs more than 15 million transactions of more than 90,000 import-export enterprises; the average revenue collection increased by over 10% annually. However, thanks to the application of IT, cargo clearance took place quickly. Through the business dialogues that we attended, it was noted that businesses mainly made recommendations on improving policies and regulations to facilitate import and export activities of enterprises", the Director of Customs IT and Statistics Department said.

Besides electronic customs procedures, another IT application that brings many benefits to businesses is electronic tax payment 24/7. From 2014 to now, the Customs authority has implemented many solutions to facilitate the collection and payment of the state budget. Up to now, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has connected the system with 46 commercial banks (as of December 12, 2022), allowing businesses to pay taxes through many electronic methods and do it 24/7.

To continue comprehensively implementing digital transformation in customs and meet the goals and tasks of digital transformation set by the Government and the Ministry of Finance, on May 4, 2022, the Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can signed Decision No. 707/QD-TCHQ approving the Plan for the digital transformation of the Customs sector by 2025, with orientation to 2030.

Regarding the goals of the Plan for the digital transformation of the Customs sector by 2025, with an orientation to 2030, Mr Le Duc Thanh said the Plan focuses on key goals such as 95% of Customs dossiers or more being digitized by 2025. Currently, although 95% of transactions of enterprises with Customs are done by electronic method, some permits of ministries, sectors or C/O... are still scanned by enterprises to send to Customs authorities which do not meet the requirements of digitization. The second important goal is redesigning professional processes to implement digital customs procedures. The third important goal is that 80% of customs inspection and supervision is done in the digital environment.

For successful digital transformation, besides the efforts of the Customs sector, Mr Le Duc Thanh expressed the need for coordination and support from the business community, the commercial banking system and related ministries and sectors to both facilitate trade and help improve the efficiency of state management in general.