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Operations at Na Meo international border gate Customs Branch (Thanh Hoa). Photo: Phong Nhan

Modern customs management

Deputy Director of Customs Management and Supervision Department Dao Duy Tam said Decree 08/2015 of the Government has created a legal basis to realize a modern customs operation method based on risk management principles in all customs inspection and supervision activities; enhance post-customs clearance inspections; expand the application of information technology and modern equipment in professional activities; conduct e-customs clearance at all customs departments and branches; and deploy the National Single Window and the ASEAN Single Window, creating a new turning point in customs modernization.

Accordingly, the application of information technology in customs operations is promoted, all transactions and information exchange between the Customs authority and the declarant are carried out through the system. The customs authority also handles and responds to the customs declarant via the system.

This contributes to reducing the face-to-face contact between customs officers and businesses in handling administrative procedures, limiting trouble, negative impacts and harassment and reducing costs for businesses because they do not have to print documents and do not have to go to the customs office to submit them.

Decree 08 reforms customs procedures, reduces unnecessary documents and papers; and specifies processing time. Specifically, it clarifies rights and obligations of the customs declarant, related organizations and individuals, the responsibility of the customs declarant and the customs officer; creates a mechanism to encourage the customs declarant to comply with the law and minimises direct contact between customs officers and declarants during customs clearance.

The decree also meets requirements on customs administrative procedures reform such as simplifying customs procedures and removing unnecessary documents such as contracts, detailed lists of goods; defines customs procedure steps, specifically in the direction of reducing the time for customs document examination and physical inspection of goods.

The survey and evaluation of management performance has been conducted regularly and has received positive feedback from businesses.

Customs authorities are increasingly affirming their active role in administrative procedure reform and making efforts to encourage related agencies to reform their management activities to achieve the same goal of facilitating import and export activities.

In addition, the decree stipulates that the notification of the results of channelization will be issued after the system receives and checks the declared information of the customs declarant (less than one minute). Thereby, the customs declarant will actively carry out the next steps to clear or release goods before or after the goods arrive at the port or border gate.

When the goods arrive at the border gate, if the customs authority detects differences between information declared by the customs declarant and information collected by the customs, the customs authority will re-channelize the customs declaration before the goods move to the customs supervision area and notify the customs declarant.

Develop a mechanism to conduct automatic supervision and management

In particular, the decree stipulates the implementation of automatic management and supervision of goods at seaports and airports as well as at warehouses, yards and inland locations with export and import activities.

The decree specifies the responsibilities of port, warehouse, yard and location operators in providing information upon supervision and inspection of goods entering, storing and leaving the customs supervision area through the system to the Customs authority.

The decree defines the responsibilities of the customs authority in providing information on the customs clearance status of export and import shipments and monitoring the performance of warehouse, yard and port businesses.

Under the decree, the declarant should contact the warehouse, yard and port operators to bring goods out of the supervision area if there is the customs authority’s confirmation that the shipment is eligible to pass through the supervision area, and do not have to meet with customs officers.

For the management of processed and manufactured goods for export, the decree also provides a number of regulations to further strengthen the capacity of the Customs in management, as well as create favorable conditions for export processing enterprises; and has a priority regime on management for enterprises that exchange information on import and use of raw materials and supplies, production or export of products with the customs authority.

In addition to the reform of administrative procedures, promoting the application of IT in the above-mentioned customs operations, to improve management capacity and issue solutions to prevent the abuse of laws for smuggling, commercial trade fraud, violation of customs laws, legal documents also offer some solutions to strengthen customs management.