Import and export increase - budget revenue increases but difficulties await

The Covid-19 pandemic has developed seriously, greatly affecting import-export activities.

Great influence from the Covid-19 pandemic

In the context of the serious development of the Covid-19 pandemic, greatly affecting import-export activities, disrupting the supply chain of goods and raw materials for export production of enterprises, the state budget collection of the maritime industry is becoming more and more difficult.

In 2021, only eight months have passed, but there are seven months that the whole country has to fight against the pandemic, import and export activities from border gates and seaports to production and business activities of domestic enterprises continuously interrupted in many parts of the country. 2021 is a particularly difficult year for the economy and business operations.

The pandemic has seriously affected all fields, significantly impacted the supply chains and trade circulation, and stalled production, business and service activities in many provinces as well as cities throughout the country.

However, thanks to the active and effective implementation of measures to both combat the Covid-19 pandemic and facilitate import-export activities and remove difficulties for businesses, the country's total import-export turnover in the first eight months of the year is projected to reach US$428.82 billion, up 27.2% over the same period last year.

In which, export turnover is estimated at US$212.55 billion, up 21.2% and import turnover is estimated at US$216.27 billion, up 33.8% over the same period last year. Budget revenue is estimated at VND250,871 billion, reaching 79.6% of the estimate, 75.58% of the striving target, up 30.07% over the same period in 2020.

Officials of Dinh Vu port border gate Customs Sub-Department, Hai Phong Customs Department inspect imported goods. Photo: T.BINH

Although Covid-19 continues to have complicated developments, spreading to many provinces and cities across the country; especially in Ho Chi Minh City - the economic locomotive of the country and many different provinces in the southern region - with the slow signals of import and export activities in July, the import-export situation is still increasing because many enterprises have signed import contracts before the pandemic broke out, goods are still carrying out procedures to help the State budget collection of the Customs sector.

Accordingly, in the general calculation of seven months, import and export activities still maintained a high growth rate compared to the same period last year.

In August, this growth momentum is slowing down, many previous orders of enterprises have ended, leading to a serious decrease in the growth rate of goods, down to 5.8% compared to July. The whole industry only reached VND19,311 billion.

On the other hand, the implementation of international integration commitments on tariffs under the commitments of the Free Trade Agreements (FTA) also led to a decrease in the state budget revenue from import taxes, affecting the state budget revenue in general. FTAs have the effect of reducing direct revenue from the volume and value of goods imported from the signed countries.

In addition, FTAs also causes indirect revenue reduction from "trade diversion", it means that importers switch to import from countries with FTA commitments to enjoy special preferential tax rates instead of importing from other countries outside the FTA as before.

Therefore, it cannot be denied that the implementation of tariff commitments according to the roadmap in FTAs and the pandemic had a strong impact on the state budget revenue from import and export activities of the Customs sector, especially in 2021.

Overcome difficulties together with businesses

In the remaining months of 2021, the Customs sector determined that the implementation of the budget collection task will be difficult when the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic is still complicated, adversely affecting import-export activities of enterprises.

Therefore, in order to facilitate enterprises to carry out procedures in the context that many provinces and cities maintain the implementation of Directive 16, the General Department of Customs also strongly deploys the application of information technology, methods of electronic transactions to support enterprises to complete customs procedures, comprehensive application in all professional fields of customs authorities, contributing to simplifying customs procedures and reducing customs clearance time for enterprises.

Ensuring 100% of Customs Departments and Customs Sub-departments carry out electronic customs procedures, budget collection and payment can be done anytime, anywhere, by any means.

The General Department of Customs also requested the customs units of provinces and cities to synchronously implement many solutions to accompany enterprises to remove difficulties, ensure the source of raw materials for production and business, as well as not causing disruptions of goods supply chains.

In particular, the General Department of Customs requires its subordinate units to implement solutions to support and create convenience for individuals and businesses, ensuring customs management, focusing on administrative procedure reform.

At the same time, it is necessary to implement solutions to support and create convenience for individuals and businesses in carrying out customs procedures, applying modern customs management methods to ensure supervision and inspection of import and export goods quickly, contributing to repelling and minimizing the possibility of disease spreading; increase online meetings, work remotely to ensure that the unit's activities are not interrupted by the pandemic.

In particular, in order to strive for budget revenue to meet and exceed assigned estimate targets, in the last months of 2021, the General Department of Customs directs the whole industry to closely follow and strictly implement Directive 215/CT-TCHQ to facilitate trade, improve the effectiveness of state management, drastically implement collection tasks and prevent loss of revenue, according to official letter No. 119/TCHQ-GSQL on strengthening inspection of activities import and export goods.

In particular, the Customs sector will continue to urge provincial and municipal customs departments to implement urgent measures to realize the "dual goal" of both preventing the Covid-19 pandemic and facilitating import-export activities.

Along with the efforts to clear goods, the Customs authority also proposed to the specialized management ministries to remove difficulties for enterprises in the import-export process in order not to disrupt the supply chain during the time of implementing social distancing according to Directive 16.