Predetermine - implement commitments on trade facilitation

Participants at the workshop. Photo: T.H

Predetermine to create trade facilitation

According to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tai, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation - General Department of Customs, the goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity to exchange and share the latest updates on Vietnamese Customs’ implementation of predetermined content. It discusses current difficulties and challenges as well as exchanges and experiences from some APEC economies. More importantly, the workshop will be an open forum to listen to feedback and suggestions of enterprises related to this content.

According to Mr. Tai, in the trend of facilitating global trade, the Customs agency of Vietnam always strives to implement modernization reform in order to simplify customs procedures and apply information technology in customs management to create favorable conditions for businesses.

Predetermining the origin of goods, value and commodity codes is one of the contents of implementing commitments in the implementation of FTAs, facilitating enterprises.

At present, the Vietnamese customs law system is gradually being standardized in a simple, consistent manner in line with the international standards and commitments of the World Customs Organization and the World Trade Organization such as the Kyoto Convention on the Harmonization of Customs Procedures, the HS Convention, the Customs Valuation Agreement, the Trade Facilitation Agreement, etc., with the goal of both ensuring trade facilitation and effective enforcement of customs legislation.

Along with that, the Vietnam Customs agency is continuing and determining to reform the customs administration toward the public services for export goods completely by electronic means according to the targets set for the development of e-government and pushing Vietnam Customs to the top of Customs in the ASEAN and the region.

At the workshop, the representatives of units under the General Department of Customs exchanged and shared their knowledge and experiences related to predefined contents for better and more effective implementation in the coming time.

Businesses should take advantage on predetermined content

Introducing the customs code identification and valuation, Ms. Nguyen Thi Dieu Hoa, Department of Import-Export Taxes under the General Department of Customs, said that this regulation has been specified in the legal documents.

In particular, the export and import goods which need to predetermine the customs value are the goods meeting the conditions: export, import for the first time; or there are big changes or abnormalities compared with the customs value that the customs declarers are carrying out; or goods of a single or unpopular item, or no identical or similar imported or exported goods on the market for comparison.

Experts at the workshop recommended that enterprises should take advantages of the regulations on predetermining to take the initiative in import-export activities of their goods.

At the seminar, representatives of the General Department of Customs, representatives of the VCCI, Ministry of Industry and Trade... have discussed and answered many questions related to predetermined procedures, against fraud in value, origin...

Answering the questions about the predetermined value of imported goods, representatives of the Department of Import-Export Taxes said that the price always fluctuates, predetermined price of a particular item must depend much on standards. Therefore, Customs authorities encourage enterprises to predetermine in term of method. The predetermined value of an item is inefficient as the goods in these cases are subject to fluctuations in price.

“Customs authorities are very anxious for businesses to specify the difficulties and obstacles from the current regulations to state management agencies to consider for amendment and supplement, with the desire that enterprises will take advantage of the commitments in production and business activities,” - representative of the Department of Management of customs shared.

At the workshop, representatives of experts and enterprises all said that the state management agencies need to strictly handle the price and origin frauds to create a fair business environment for enterprises.

The representative of the Department of Customs Supervision and Management said that when Vietnam became a member of many new trade agreements, enterprises should take advantage of this opportunity to apply in their activities. About the fight against fraudulent claims of origin, illegal transport, the Customs has been implemented for a long time, before the US-China trade war.

“However, when the trade war occurred, the anti-fraud of origin, especially the Chinese goods which were forged Vietnamese goods, are promoted implementation, avoiding taking the advantage of Vietnam to re-export goods to the US,”- representative of the Department of Customs Supervision confirmed.