Using only screwdriver to assemble, could Asanzo televisions be labelled Vietnam origin?

Source: Internet

At a recent meeting organised by the Ministry of Finance - Permenant Committee of National Steering Committee 389 under the chairing of Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can - Member of National Steering Committee 389, representative of General Department of Vietnam Customs, based on results of the investigation, verification and identification of the basic violations of Asanzo and companies named Asanzo showed that Asanzo Electronic Technology Investment Joint Stock Company opened three export declarations for 661 units of Asanzo brand and components such as wall brackets and remote controls for customers in Japan.

Notably, on the export declaration, the enterprise declared goods originated from Vietnam.

The representative of the General Department of Vietnam Customs said Clause 6, Article 9 of the Decree No. 31/2018/ND-CP of Government dated March 8, 2018, stipulated the implementation of the Law on Foreign Trade Management on goods origin, regulates simple processing and manufacturing “The following processing or manufacturing, when carried out separately or in combination with each other, is considered to be simple or not until it is determined goods origin at a country, group of countries or territories: Simple assembly of components of a product in order to create a completed product”.

Based on theseprovisions, compared with the assembly at the company's production site, the assembly was done on stretched tables, workers assembled products with screwdrivers, without manufacturing chains, complex machinery and equipment, high technical requirements; the assembly of product components by manual labour to create finished products, the added value content was not high.

According to the inspection and verification data of the General Department of Market Management, the ratio of main materials/cost of goods sold accounts for 98 percent - 99 percent, the added value generated after the assembly process was very low, only 1-2 percent of the total cost of products.

Therefore, authorities determined the exported television branded Asanzo only simply assembly component of the product to create a finished product that did not meet criteria of origin of Vietnam in accordance with provisions in Decree No. 31/2018/ND-CP and signs of counterfeiting origin of exported goods.

Regarding this issue, at the above meeting, Tran Thi Thu Huong, Director of the Trade Certification Center of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said: After receiving the information about exported goods, VCCI inspected the system of granting certificates of origin.

The VCCI admitted they did not receive trader declaration dossiers of Asanzo Group Joint Stock Company. In fact, according to regulations, enterprises must always declare trader dossiers and then complete the application for C/O.

After many times receiving requests to giving specific opinions related to 661 Asanzo-branded TVs already exported but the value content was up to 98 percent from imported components, only 2 percent of the value came from the domestic assembly stage while they declared goods originated from Vietnam in the export declaration. Was it correct and were there any sufficient grounds to identify signs of counterfeiting of origin? Tran Thi Thu Huong admitted that: “If the business only used the screwdriver to turn and twist to assemble, it was clear that it did not pass the simple processing stage. If it did not pass the simple processing stage, it would not pass the rules of percentage and HS conversion rule”.

Notably, the representative of VCCI also acknowledged that after receiving information about the Asanzo case, VCCI sent working group to work with the Asanzo, but they also worked only in the spirit of "listening to the explanation of business without working with specific company records”.