Hai Phong Customs takes initiative in implementing Decree 15 on food safety

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Hai Phong Customs Officer inspects imported frozen meat. Photo: T.B

Hai Phong is the area with the largest import and export volume in the North with the number of enterprises carrying out procedures of about 20,000 enterprises per year, of which many commodities are subject to State food safety inspection. Therefore, Hai Phong Customs determines that the unified implementation of Decree 15 is the urgent and important task.

According to the latest statistics in January 2018 from Hai Phong Customs, the Department carried out 74,859 declarations, of which nearly 13,300 declarations are subject to specialized inspection, accounting for 17.75% of the total declarations. Notably, the quantity of declarations subject to specialized inspection in Hai Phong Customs mainly focused on 4 areas, including: quarantine, food safety inspection, State inspection of quality, specialized management (must have a license, import conditions, declaration ...).

Deputy Director of Hai Phong Customs Department Nguyen Kien Giang said that after Decree 15 was issued and took effect, the Department took the initiative to study and instruct subordinate units, focusing on border gate Customs Branches.

During handling Customs procedures in the reality and studying contents of the Decree, Hai Phong Customs has realized that one of the contents greatly impacting on enterprises in carrying out import and export procedures subject to food safety inspection is provisions in Article 4 of Decree 15 on exemption from food safety inspection, which have many new contents compared to Decree 38.

Especially, Decree 15 is supplemented with 4 new contents compared to Decree 38/2012/ND-CP on exemption from inspection, including products that are granted the receipt of regulation conformity announcement; Imported products and materials are only for export productions or processing or for internal production of organizations and individuals but not for domestic consumption; Products temporarily imported for sale at duty-free shops; Goods imported for urgent requirements under the direction of the Government, the Prime Minister. The leader of Hai Phong Customs Department promptly issued Official Letter 2341/HQHP-GSQL dated 13th February 2018 to instruct Customs Branches to implement synchronously when carrying out Customs procedures for enterprises, meeting requirements on administrative reform in a timely fashion and facilitate import and export activities.

In addition, Hai Phong Customs Department has also guided Customs Branches on some urgent issues such as when carrying out Customs procedures, checking conditions stipulated in Clause 1, Article 14 Decree No.15/2018/ND-CP with the requirements for terrestrial animal products, fishery products, plant products used for imported food (excluding processed foods, pre-packaged food and food exported by Vietnamese organizations and individuals to foreign countries but returned and cases stipulated in Article 13 of this Decree).

Regarding the State food safety inspection for imported food, in cases where an enterprise registers for the food safety inspection under the reduced inspection method stipulated in Clause 1 Article 16; the Customs Branches shall request enterprises to submit dossiers as per provisions in Clause 1 Article 18, and to check the conditions for application of the inspection mode prescribed in Clause 1, Article 17 and to carry out procedures in accordance with provisions in Clause 1, Article 19 of Decree No. 15/2018/ ND-CP.

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According to the leader of Hai Phong Customs Department, with the initiative mentioned above, during the first days of implementation of Decree 15, the Department has performed smoothly and without obstacles affecting the procedure performance and goods clearance of enterprises.

“We determined that the implementation of new provisions such as Decree 15 is the requirement and responsibility of State agency. Thereby, the management agency must be actively to grasp and implement. In the implementation, if meeting with difficulties in reality, the agency will report to the competent agencies in a timely fashion and not to abdicate responsibility and difficulties for enterprises”-Mr. Giang said.