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Deputy Director General of General Department of Customs Mai Xuan Thanh speaks at the workshop. Photo: N.Linh

Policies not favorable for businesses to be removed

The workshop was jointly organised by the General Department of Customs and the USAID-funded Trade Facilitation Project on November 30. The workshop was attended by nearly 200 businesses and representatives of the Government Office and Ministry of Justice.

At the workshop, Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh said the top requirement of policy making was to promote production and business. This revision was based on important laws like the Customs Law, Foreign Trade Management Law, Tax Administration Law, Law on Export Tax and Import Tax. "On the basis of the prevailing legal system to create a specific legal environment towards creating favourable conditions for businesses, "Thanh said the Customs agency expected that ministries, agencies and General Department of Customs would review policies that are unfavourable for businesses and remove them, to create a foundation for businesses to develop. In particular, the industrial revolution 4.0 really had to be applied to reduce the burden on businesses;management agencies mightconnect information to implement their State management, cutting multiple declaration of the same information for firms.

Regarding the need for the participation of the business community, Thanh said: “Is the previous management mindset still relevant to the present? The Customs agency expects the management agencies would have a change in their mind in this revision. However, to make it end, businesses might express their wishes and contribute important opinions to develop and complete the draft decree.

“In particular, policies are not always revised, so this is an opportunity for businesses to express their opinions on customs procedures, inspection and supervision as well as issues related to import and export activities,” said the Deputy Director General.

At the workshop, a representative of the USAID-funded Trade Facilitation Project highly appreciated the efforts of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs to carry out the Government's resolutions on improving business environment and national competitiveness. However, this representative also said Vietnam still ranked 70th in the Doing Business 2020 Report, down one spot. Therefore, customs procedures should be improved to contribute to improving the business environment. In which, Decree 08/2015 / ND-CP and Decree 59/2018 / ND-CP were considered the most important legal documents on customs procedures for both customs and businesses. After years of revisions, customs has taken a good step in resolving policy-related problems and problems that may arise in the future. The opinions of enterprises at this workshopwould be very important for Customs to complete the draft decree to contribute to boosting the economy.

Nearly 200 enterprises contributed their comments to the draft decree amending and supplementing Decree 08/2015 / ND-CP and Decree 59/2018 / ND-CP. Photo: N.Linh

However, in the past years, Vietnam signed a number of new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) (such as EVFTA, CPTPP), that confirmed far-reaching and comprehensive commitments on facilitation and reform of laws and policies towards more transparency, convenience and compliance with international practices. New-generation FTAs ​​require Vietnam to consolidate the State apparatus, improve institutions and build a legal basis in the direction of promoting administrative reform and strengthening the responsibility and discipline of civil servants and complying with agreements and commitments, thus supporting the reform of Vietnam's growth model andeconomic restructuring.At the workshop, a representative of the Customs Control and Supervision Department said Decree 08/2015 / ND-CP and Decree 59/2018 / ND-CP contributed to promoting administrative reform, creating a favourable environment for goods investment and import-export activities, raising the efficiency of customs operations and ensuring State management of customs.

Contributing to improving the business environment

In addition, Vietnam's business environment ranking fell one spot from its position last year (according to the Doing Business 2020 Report released by the World Bank in October 2019), that requires the implementation of solutions to cut clearance time, facilitate businesses, comprehensively reform specialised inspection procedures to contribute to improving the cross-border trade transaction index and general index on business environmentand improve national competitiveness and meetthe Government's goals in Resolution 02 / NQ-CP.

This revision also aims to deal with problems that have been revealed and are no longer consistent with current management practices or overlap with newly issued regulations, such as regulations on declaration and submission of customs dossiers, regulations on risk management in customs operations, post-customs clearance inspection, management of authorised economic operators, customs inspection and valuation and regulations related to the National Single Window and specialised inspection

A representative of the Customs Control and Supervision Department said the important goal of this revision is to unify contents of the current legal system; amend and simplify administrative procedures, ensure transparency in implementation of administrative procedures andfacilitate businesses in the import and export of goods, entry and exit of means of transport.

At the same time, to conform with international commitments, such as the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the European Union, the agreement on mutual recognition of authorised economic operators of Vietnam Customs and Korean Customs, and the F1 race hosting contract between Formula One World Championship Limited and Hanoi People's Committee.

To improve legal basis for customs information, customs value bad customs competence to handle and carry out public duties in post-customs clearance inspection and anti-smuggling investigation; to improve the law observance of the customs declarant.

Also, this revision ensures the constitutionality, legality and consistency with legal documents that have been amended, supplemented and to be in compliance with international treaties related to the customs sector.