Plant variety imports under the NSW: Still using the old procedure

The needsare low

Discussing with the reporter of Customs News, an employee of the Central Plant Variety Joint Stock Company said: the company mainly imports rice and corn varieties from China through HuuNghi border gate (Lang Son). The company’s need for importing new varieties to experiment and test produce is not high.Typically, the company only imported 2 to 3 new plant varieties each year, up to 10 varieties maximum. Therefore, the frequency of implementation of the procedure "Licensing imports of plant varieties not on the list of plant varieties permitted for production and trading in Vietnam" is low. Under the specified plan, at the end of the year or the beginning of the new year, the company willimplement the licensing procedures for all the necessary plant varieties. Since being trained about the NSW until now, the company has not tried to implement the new procedure because of no actual need.

For the same reason, Ms. Nguyen ThiThanhHuyen, anemployee of Thai Binh Plant Variety Corporation (the company often imports hybrid rice varieties from China in November or December every year with the quantity of 500 – 600 tons in 2 months) said: Ms. Huyen attended both the training sessions on the implementation of the NSW at the Department of Crop Production (MARD), but she has not taken one practical step yet. Only about 2 months ago, when discussing with the reporter of Customs News, Ms. Huyen gave the reason that the training process took place quite quickly, so the company did not have enough information and was afraid to implement. For now, Ms. Huyen has taken the initiative to research and clear the problems, but for a long time, the company mostly imported familiar plant varieties that have been licensed, no need to implement the NSW procedure.

Afraid of change

In fact, in addition tothe reason of low actual need, most companies hesitate to begin to apply the new procedure while being familiar with the old one. The representative of a company expressed that his company only applies for import licenses for a few plant varieties each year to experiment and it is planned beforehand, so the company is still comfortable with the traditional procedure. The company applies to the Crop Production Department then waits for 2 to 3 weeks before calling the department and asking to get the result. After being allowed to import the varieties by the Crop Production Department, the company continues to complete the procedure at the Plant Protection Department (MARD). Normally, in order to complete the procedure, the staff of the company have to go to the department many times, but according to this representative, the staff have been familiar with it and only implement the procedure a few times a year, so they have no problem. This situation makes the companies delaythe implementation of the NSW.

However, when being asked when the company continues to import new plant varieties for experiment in the next period, whether the companytries to implement the procedure under the NSW or not, this representative said that the company would apply it. The reason is through the process of training, the companyhas realized the practical benefits of the NSW. If the application is successful, the employees who implement the procedure canproactively save their time and effort. In addition, one important reason is that the company must apply the NSW to avoid "lagging behind" while in the long run, these procedures will be applied fully under electronic records, no longer receiving paper records.

According to MARD, updated to September 9th,2016, only 24 records applying for “Licensing imports of plant varieties not on the list of plant varieties permitted for production and trading in Vietnam” have beenreceived by the National Single Window Portal. Among them, 11 records have been licensed. This figure is only increased slightly compared to August 3rd, when the reporter of Customs News discussed with the representative of the Crop Production Department and got the answer that at that time, there were about 10 records had been licensed in a total of 20 received records. All records came from 5 companies.

Speaking about the quite poor results of the implementation of the NSW in the cultivation field, Mr. VuongDucHinh, the Deputy Chief of Permanent Administrative Reform Office, MARD, evaluated: In fact, the enterprises have not really understood the benefits of the NSW, therefore they do not have the enthusiasm for implementing it. Apart from the reasons from enterprises themselves, the lack of initiative from the Crop Production Department is also a reason. Reportedly, MARD is going to have a private meeting with the Crop Production Department to promote the deployment of the NSW in the near future.