Exciting economic rhythms through customs statistics

Important information channel

The task of customs statistics is clearly defined in the Customs Law. Over the past years, information on import and export of goods collected and supplied by the Customs has made a great contribution to the policy making and macro management and administration of the Party and State leaders and management agencies and also an important information channel for the business community.

Actually in the last time, in the important political events of the country as the National Assembly sessions or foreign trips of leaders of the Party, State; or when welcoming the foreign senior leaders to the country etc. The General Department of Customs has timely issued important statistical information on bilateral or multilateral external economic relations with countries or regions, help the community to see the role and status of the country in the international arena.

At present, with the frequency of important political and diplomatic events of the country are increasing taking place, evolutions of import-export activities of Vietnam increasingly receive many interests of many organizations, individuals at home and abroad, the General Department of Customs has been trying to regularly, diversely and timely put statistical information, rather than the periodic information. The information is updated on the Portal of the General Department of Customs (www.customs.gov.vn) in the section "Customs Statistics".

"Hot" with cars

In addition to information for the management and administration of the leaders at all levels as mentioned above, statistical information of the General Department of Customs always sticking to the "hot" issues related to import-export activities.

In the search function on google.com.vn, we typed "cheap Indian car" and find out nearly 3 million results after only 0.73 seconds. Remarkably, this phrase is mainly from the beginning of 2017 when reporters focus on exploiting information related to automobile import activities of the country published by the General Department of Customs. Based on data released by the Customs, a series of articles and articles are presented in various angles to paint a colorful picture of automobile imports from India with a rapid growth rate of more than 4 times (up to the end of the first quarter), with price (not tax) less than 100 million VND/car etc. From India, the story of import automobile continues to spread to Thailand, Indonesia with the equal attractive information.

The correlation graph between the volume and value of imports of automobiles in complete units and cars of less than 9 seats in QI/2016 and QI/2017 (based on statistical data of the General Department of Customs). Graph: T.Binh.

In view of the special attention of the public, the General Department of Customs has promptly added interesting analytical reports to exciting information about automobile imports. This is a thematic analysis of the imported pickup truck from Thailand with the attention number when the country accounted for nearly 100% of imported vehicles into Vietnam; then analyze the topic about the evolution of automobile imports from India from 2015 to present; or the special subject of imported cars less than nine seats from ASEAN ...

Normally, many people still think that the story of numbers, especially the statistics are usually dry, but by the above example of automobile imports, it can be seen that statistical activity of the customs sector really contributes to the diversity of color, which stimulates the foreign economic picture of the country. The numbers increase/decrease, but specific analysis makes it easy for people to feel, access to the country's export and import situation - an increasingly important economic activity of our country.

Innovation, diversity, and updating

Along with information about cars, recently, the information about goods, markets attracting the attention of people, enterprises, management agencies are also promptly issued by the General Department of Customs. For example, the story of "cheap chickens from the United States" or concerns about "dirty meat from Brazil" has just appeared, the customs also promptly provide the detailed and full statistical information.

From the statistical data of the customs office, the resonance through mass media, the people have more and more fully and multidimensional access to important markets and export commodities of our country. From the concern about China's trade deficit, the joy of exporting to the United States, or Vietnam becoming one of the capital cities for manufacturing and exporting popular products like mobile phones etc. have provided the overall and multidimensional view in the field of foreign trade of the country.

Deputy Director of the Customs Information and Statistics Department (General Department of Customs) Phan Sinh has repeatedly shared, once to schedule disclosure of information, but due to objective reasons the customs office has not promptly put up the portal of the General Department of Customs, there were a correspondent of a foreign news agency called to "question" the leadership of the Department.

That shows the growing interest of public opinion in the statistics of the Customs. To meet that need, the General Department of Customs (directly the Department of Customs Information Technology and Statistics) is continuing to innovate in statistics and publication of statistical data on import and export activities. For example, from the end of 2016, the customs agency announces a new form of statistics on export-import activities by mode of transport. From the new data, we can see that there are three main modes of transportation that bring Vietnamese goods to the international market: water, air, and land. Of which water and air do not dominate. While exports are mainly transported through air route are mobile phones, computers, etc.

Remarkably, from 2017, the release of statistics from the Customs sector was made earlier. For example, the 1st monthly data will be released soonest 2 working days after the end of the period (from 2016 and earlier, usually after 5 days); term 2 and monthly data will be released soonest 5 working days after the end of the period (usually after 15 days).

Deputy Director of the Department of Customs Information and Statistics Phan Sinh said: The early publication of customs statistics is an effort to further improve the quality of public services serving people and businesses. In order to achieve the early release of information in 2017, require the functional bodies of the Department continue to strive to perform business operations and to ensure the stability of the IT infrastructure.