Many customs officials received certificates of merit for making active contributions to specialised inspection reform

Deputy Head of Supervision Division No.1 (Customs Control and Supervision Department), Le Nguyen Viet Ha received Certificates of Merit from the Minister, Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung.

Certificates of Merit from the Ministry and the Chairman of the Government Office are awarded to collectives and individuals of the Government Office, ministries, organisations and localities who have contributed to the construction of the e-Government, reform of administrative procedures of the Government Office and reform of regulations and specialised inspection procedures at border gates.

Four individuals under the General Department of Vietnam Customs received the Certificate of Merit, namely: Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh; Director of Gia Lai - Kon Tum Customs Department (former Deputy Director of Customs Control and Supervision Department) Vu Le Quan; Deputy Head of Supervision Divisio No.1 (Customs Control and Supervision Department) Le Nguyen Viet Ha and specialist of Customs Control and Supervision Department Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh.

Deputy Head of Supervision Division No.1 (Customs Control and Supervision Department), Le Nguyen Viet Ha shared this was an encouragement for those who have been trying to implement the Government's directives in Resolution. No. 02/NQ-CP dated January 1, 2020 and Resolution No. 99/NQ-CP dated November 13, 2019to facilitate businesses; protecting the rights and interests of business organisations, individuals and consumers; improving management efficiency.

On September 16, 2020, the Minister of Finance submitted Report No. 164/BTC-TTr to the Prime Minister for the consideration and approval of the scheme. On January 12, 2021, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 38/QD-TTg approving the scheme. The Prime Minister acknowledged the assessment results of the current shortcomings in specialised inspection and agreed with the proposal on seven major reforms in specialised inspection as stated in the scheme, specifically: to assign customs authority to act as the focal point in conducting quality inspection and food safety inspection of import goods at border gates.

Applying uniformly three methods of inspection for the whole field of food quality and safety to reduce the number of imported consignments subjected to inspection. Simplify procedures for quality inspection and food safety inspection for import goods in the direction of gradually simplifying on the basis of maximum application of information technology; the system automatically decides which subjects are exempted or reduced from inspection, the firm is not required to carry out the procedures for requesting to exempt or reduce inspection.

The implementation of quality inspection and food safety inspection by the Customs authority will cut three steps of procedures in 10 steps of the quality inspection process, and cut two procedure steps in five steps towards the food safety inspection process.

Apply item inspections to reduce the number of consignments subject to inspection (switching from tight inspections to normal inspections, from normal inspections to reduced inspections for identical goods without distinguishing importer) to cut some unnecessary inspection steps and reduce inspection rates for the same item. The importer is responsible for the import consignments and will be handled in accordance with regulations if the goods are of poor quality. At the same time, to fully and substantially apply risk management in quality inspection and food safety inspection to imported goods to ensure the role of State management and improve the compliance of enterprises. Expanding subjects exempted from quality inspection and food safety inspection, with a plan for supplementing 19 groups of subjects to reduce State management and business costs

In addition, the application of information technology systems in the new model to reduce time, support businesses and aid relevant agencies. According to the scheme model, many inspection procedures under the new model are simplified thanks to the information source, the importer's database is concentrated on a single focal point that is the customs authority. When the goods are eligible for exemption from quality inspection or reduced inspection, the electronic customs system will automatically update, the importer does not have to apply for exemption or reduction as present; reducing many duplicates between customs dossiers and quality inspection dossiers.