Suggestions for the draft decree regulating quality inspection and food safety inspection

Deputy Director of HCM City Customs Department Nguyen Huu Nghiep chaired the meeting

Chairing the meeting, Deputy Director of HCM City Customs Department Nguyen Huu Nghiep said the draft decree regulating quality inspection and food safety inspection had many changes. The content of the draft decree was basically consistent with the new model content on quality inspections and food safety inspections for import goods of the Scheme approved by the Prime Minister in Decision 38/2021/QD-TTg dated January 12, 2021.

For the draft to have full content, close to reality, Deputy Director Nguyen Huu Nghiep suggested specialised inspection authorities and enterprises were the ones directly implementing the regulations on specialised inspection must contribute specific ideas of the contents specified in the draft so that when the draft was approved, it would be effectively applied.

Attending the meeting, representatives of specialised inspection enterprises, inspection agencies, import-export enterprises and border-gate customs units all said this draft decree is a major step in the reform of quality inspections and food safety inspections. New contents in the draft document greatly facilitate the inspection of quality and food safety for imported goods.

The representative of DHL Express said this draft decree stipulated the responsibilities of customs authorities in specialised inspection, which was a great progress that would be very favourable for businesses. Currently, firms have inspection site, sitting with the Customs, so it would be very convenient for comparison and inspection in specialised fields.

However, firms wondered about the coordination process, which products were subjected to strict inspection, sent for inspection, which goods were subject to on-site inspection, how long was the specified time and it should have specific regulations. In particular, whether or not express delivery has its own mechanism for this particular type - the representative of this business asked.

Dang Thai Thien, Deputy Head of Control and Supervision Division - HCM City Customs Department said the draft decree would be a very strong reform step in specialised inspection when it was completed. According to this decree, specialised inspection at border gates is carried out based on information technology, the national single window system to help enterprises to look up information of goods subjected to specialised inspection before carrying out customs procedures, it would be very convenient for firms.

Besides that, some said the presentation of the content that needs to be separated into two parts, including quality inspection and food safety inspection for easy monitoring and implementation.

According to the draft, the content of chapter 2 is divided into four sections, including: item 1, item 2, stipulating the quality inspection of goods and food safety inspection of imported goods will be carried out with customs procedure at the same time; section 3, section 4 stipulate the inspection of quality and inspecting the food safety of imported goods shall be carried out before implementing customs procedures is not necessary because the contents and steps of the related parties do not change. The difference is the time when implementing customs procedures, the dossier has required customs declarations and the system will classify the channel for the declaration together with the decision on the specialised inspection method.

From the above fact, the HCM City Customs Department proposed amending chapter 2 in the direction that only item 1 stipulating quality inspection of goods and item 2 stipulating food safety inspection.

At the meeting, representatives of the border gate customs branches raised some shortcomings in specialised inspectionand also gave some concerns about the legality, as well as implementation of specialised inspection which are specified in the draft. According to Le Nguyen Linh, Deputy Manager of Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Branch, the duties of the Customs authority specified in the draft decree must ensure consistency in the legal documents, such as the Quality Inspection Law and Food Safety Law.

Recording the comments of businesses and the specialised inspection agency, Deputy Director of HCM City Customs Department Nguyen Huu Nghiep said, HCM City Customs Department would synthesise to send to the drafting agency and at the same time wished to continue to receive comments from the units for the draft decree to be finalised and close to reality.