Exporting 400,000 tonness of rice: Customs strictly complies with regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade

	Inspection team set up to check rice volume stuck at ports
	VFA demands priority clearance for rice stuck at ports
	GDVC informed the export of 400,000 tonnes of rice

On April 17, the General Department of Customs system recorded 4,110 tonnes of rice in the April quota to be exported. Chart: T. Binh.

How is the export plan of 400,000 tonnes formed?

On March 25, 2020, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade to preside and coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to establish an interdisciplinary inspection team working with localities and rice exporting enterprises to evaluate the supply of paddy and rice and rice export to report to the Prime Minister to consider adjusting rice export activities.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade led in working with ministries, branches, localities and enterprises to prepare a report to submit to the PM.

After the Prime Minister agreed to export rice again but required ensuring food security, on April 10, Ministry of Industry and Trade issued Decision No. 1106/ QD-BCT announcing the rice export quota for April 2020.

Before the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued Decision 1106/ QD-BCT, the Ministry of Finance twice submitted written comments. In Official Letter No. 4355/ BTC-QLG dated April 10, the Ministry of Finance stated that many businesses have been approved winning results (national reserve rice supply) and announced the winning results but refused to sign contracts with the amount of 160,300 tonness. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance proposed allowing the export of rice only to enterprises that have won tenders with the regional State Reserve Department and must sign a delivery contract.

When implementing Decision 1106, the Customs Department detected an abnormality as some enterprises abandoned supplying winning rice to the national reserve to register for exporting rice.

Director of the Department of Customs Management Supervision (General Department of Customs) Au Anh Tuan said there were four enterprises on the winning list of supplying national reserve rice in 2020 but wanted to switch to export registration.

In addition, under the direction of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Industry and Trade worked with units on the related content but the meeting took place only for half a day.

The issue of rice export greatly and directly affects many businesses and millions of farmers, is the working time of only half a day enough to assess the overall supply and the situation of rice exports in accordance with the guiding spirit of the Prime Minister?

Great demand, small quotas

Article 2 of Decision No. 1106/ QD-BCT of April 10, 2020 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade clearly stipulates two principles of quota management as follows: Firstly, traders who register for customs declarations first shall be deducted from the previous export quota. The number of declarations on the registered customs declaration will be subtracted from the amount permitted for export in April. Second, the customs declaration is valid for carrying out customs procedures until the total number of registered exports imports of declarations hitting 400,000 tonness (customs declarations with an amount in excess of 400,000 tonness will not be valid for customs procedures).

According to the above rule, the General Department of Customs implements the customs procedures. Per a press release issued by the General Department of Customs this afternoon 17/4, Decision 1106/ QD-BCT takes effect from 0g on 11/4-2020 but at that time the General Department of Customs did not receive the original document from the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Not until 9:30 am on April 11, did the General Department of Customs receive a copy sent by the Ministry of Industry and Trade via email (April 13, received the official copy).

However, when receiving a copy at 9:30 am on 11/4, based on quota management specified in Article 2 of Decision 1106, the General Department of Customs has set up information indicators on the Customs Electronic Data Processing System (VNACCS) to automatically monitor and subtract the amount of exported rice within the quota to be exported and applied from 00:00 on 12/4/2020.

The deduction will be automatically performed as soon as the customs declarant sends the information of the customs declaration to the system and the system will automatically stop receiving the information of the registration of customs declaration if the registered number hits the quota that are allowed to export (400,000 tons), without the intervention of customs officers.

From 0am - 6:15 am on April 12, 38 enterprises registered 519 export declarations at 13 sub-departments, with the number of rice registered for export declaration of 399,989.73 tonnes, of which one enterprise registered to export with 102 declarations, in equivalent with 96,234 tonnes.

"Thus, the rice export quota was only 10.47 tonnes, so enterprises continue to register for export declarations with quantities larger than 10.47 tonnes, so the system will not receive them. After 6:15 am on 12/4, there were two enterprises registering two declarations with the amount of less than 10.47 tonnes and being received by the system (15:10 registered to export nine tonnes and 19:34 registered to export 1.2 tonnes)"- General Department of Customs information.

It must be added that in the report 2412/ BCT-XNK dated 6 April of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to the Prime Minister, it showed that by March 27, 2020, 92 separate members of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA). The total amount of rice under the signed contract but not yet delivered is up to 1,574 million tonnes. In particular, from now until May 31, 2020 must deliver 1.385 million tonnes. On the other hand, the amount of rice currently in stock for VFA members (60/92 members) is 1,651 million tonnes.

Thus, it is understandable that enterprises quickly register all 400,000 tonnes of goods according to quotas.

For the implementation of e-customs procedures, this content has been prescribed in the Customs Law and legal documents for years. Accordingly, all items, not just rice, are declared and registered automatically 24/7 via the electronic customs clearance system.

The Customs Law also stipulates that enterprises can register declarations when the goods have not arrived at the port and the declaration is valid for 15 days.

With the above provisions, it can be seen that business registration of declarations on the electronic clearance system is 24/7 even when there is no goods in the port is normal operation for many years and in accordance with the law.

Customs proposed many solutions for enterprises

Facing the difficulties of a number of enterprises that have goods located at the port and to ensure food security, creating fairness for rice exporting enterprises as well as issues related to national rice reserves, in order to ensure food security, on the afternoon of April 17, the General Department of Customs said the Customs office has continued to propose many solutions to remove issues.

Specifically, the management of export rice should ensure the Dtate management of exported rice; ensure publicity, transparency and convenience for businesses when planning to export rice and handle rice stored at the border but cannot be exported.

The General Department of Customs made specific recommendations for rice shipments currently at ports but not yet exported; quota management in the stage of disease prevention in Covid-19; and the plan after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For bidding to buy national reserve rice, according to the provisions of the Bidding Law, in case the bidder wins but refuses to sign the contract, bid security shall be collected from 1% to 3% of the bidding package price.

According to the General Department of Customs, this level of regulation is insufficient to bind the contractors' responsibilities when winning the bid, so it is recommended the Prime Minister direct ministries and branches to study amendments and supplements to the Bidding Law to supplement regulations on sanctions against bidding.

The Customs Newspaper will continue to detail the recommendations of the General Department of Customs around this important issue.