Vietnam Customs is proud of tradition, upholding achievements, proactively facing new opportunities and challenges

Promoting the traditional history of the past 75 years, the Customs sector has proactively and firmly assumed the responsibility of "guarding the economy". General Director of the General Department of Customs Nguyen Van Can emphasized the above when speaking to Customs Newspaper on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam Customs (September 10, 1945-10 September 2020).

General Director of General Department of Customs Nguyen Van Can

Proud history

Customs was one of the earliest forces after the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This affirms the indispensable role of Customs to the development history of the country in the Ho Chi Minh era. Could you please review the highlights on the 75-year development and maturity of Vietnam Customs?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

On September 10, 1945, just eight days after President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence that gave birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Interior Minister Vo Nguyen Giap represented the President of the Government. The signing of Decree No. 27/SL established the "Department of Tariffs and Indirect Taxes" – the forerunner of Vietnam Customs today.

Since its establishment, Vietnam Customs has constantly strived, built and matured, making an important contribution to the revolutionary cause of the country and the people. Vietnam Customs has a unified organizational structure from central to local levels, with a relatively complete legal framework foundation in accordance with international standards and practices. The Customs sector has become one of the pioneers and plays a key role in the economic development and integration of the country.

To forge a long tradition and build a position like today, it is thanks to the leadership and direction of the Party, State, and leaders at all levels and the continuous efforts of generations of staff, Ministries, civil servants, officers and employees of the customs sector.

Could you give us a clearer assessment of the outstanding results and contributions of Vietnam Customs in the cause of construction and development of the country?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

In each historical period, Vietnam Customs has always made worthy contributions to the cause of national construction, protection and development.

Looking back at the tradition of the past 75 years, especially the strong integration process in recent years, the Customs sector has to both facilitate trade and ensure management work, leading to innovative management thinking. There are three prominent and cross-cutting contributions of Vietnam Customs: trade facilitation; State budget collection; fighting smuggling, protecting the security and safety of the community.

Firstly, trade facilitation. When the country entered the integration period, the volume of import and export goods increased, apart from the state management of customs, the important task for the Customs sector for many years was to facilitate trade.

The General Department of Customs has continuously promoted the improvement of the legal framework; reformed and simplified administrative procedures, modernized customs according to international standards and practices, and promoted the application of information technology (IT) such as implementing the VNACCS/ VCIS Automatic Clearance System; VASSCM automatic customs management system; coordinated tax collection through commercial banks by electronic method 24/7; completing the e-Government architecture of the General Department of Customs.

In addition to the modernization of the internal sector, the General Department of Customs has clearly shown a central role to connect and promote relevant ministries and agencies in reforming, simplifying administrative procedures, and reducing time of import and export goodsclearance.

Notably, the General Department of Customs has been entrusted with the responsibility of the Government and the Ministry of Finance to be the standing agency of the National Steering Committee for the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) and the National Single Window (NSW) and trade facilitation (Commission 1899).

Second, state budget revenue has been a central task throughout the industry since its inception. Determining this as the most important political task, each year, Vietnam Customs always strives to drastically and synchronously implement solutions to fulfill the budget revenue target. In particular, in the last five years (2015-2019), the whole industry always exceeded the target, the revenue of the following year was higher than the previous year and for the whole period, it was nearly VND1.5 trillion, in 2019 alone the record high was VND348,711 billion.

The results of the Customs' revenue collection are an important contribution to the stability of the national financial potential, serving the socio-economic development goals of the country.

Third, anti-smuggling is the main function and task of Vietnam Customs. The anti-smuggling front is always an issue because the tricks of the highly sophisticated and constantly changing lines and gangs. Especially during the period of extensive international integration and strong development of science and technology, the smuggling and illegal cross-border trafficking of goods is increasingly complicated at all border lines, border gates by road, sea and air.

The subjects are increasingly sophisticated, reckless, dynamic, organized into cross-border lines and drives, using many modern means and technical equipment to smuggle and transport banned goods, especially drugs with very large quantities, high tax rates and counterfeit products with labels of Vietnamese origin.

With the assigned responsibility, without fear of hardship and sacrifice, generations of customs officers have been clever, brave and determined to fight and promptly detect and destroy many violation cases. Typically, in recent years, the Customs sector has presided over and participated in destroying many major projects, seizing hundreds of kilograms of drugs, tons of ivory, millions of cigarette packs, the total value of infringing goods seized each year are up to a trillion.

For the past five years (2015-2019), the Customs sector has presided over, coordinated, discovered, arrested and handled 84,362 violation cases. The amount collected and remitted to the state budget is VND1,561 billion. The Customs Office has prosecuted 247 criminal cases, transferred to another agency to propose the prosecution of 571 criminal cases.

The results of the fight on the anti-smuggling front contributed significantly to the fight against budget revenue loss; creating a transparent and fair business environment and protected the security and safety of the community.

Currently, the General Department of Customs is assigned by the Minister of Finance, Standing Deputy Head of the National Steering Committee, to combat smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeiting (Steering Committee 389) to advise and organize the implementation of duties of the Standing Agency of the 389 National Steering Committee.

Integration brings opportunities andchallenges for the Customs sector

The trend of globalization brings both opportunities and challenges, especially the Covid-19 pandemic from the beginning of 2020 has significantly impacted Customs work, can you expand on the issue?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

Vietnam Customs is considered "the gatekeeper of the economy", performing the task "at the front of the wind", so it is always one of the industries that are directly affected, first and most, from the trend of integration and globalization.

In 2020 and following years, the world and the regional situation will continue to seecomplicated developments, natural disasters and unpredictable pandemics, which greatly affect international trade and business activities. The world, though heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to have strong changes, especially in technology; trade competition is increasingly fierce; as well as the trend of trade protectionism. The country's economy is gradually stabilizing, recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to grow faster, with deeper economic integration with new opportunities and challenges, and the duties of the Customs sector are increasingly difficult.

State budget revenue of the Customs sector is the first and most affected area. Due to the pandemic, global trade decline, sluggish domestic import and export activities, the revenue of the whole industry in the first months of the year decreased sharply compared to the same period in 2019. From the beginning of the year to August 10, the whole industry collected nearly VND181,500 billion to the state budget, reaching 53.69% of the estimated target, down more than 15% over the same period last year.

Revenue collection also faces the problem of tariff reduction under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In 2020, the import tax rates of FTAs ​​will continue to be cut deeply, especially for goods with large turnover, high tax rates, and revenue accounts for a large proportion.

In addition, the Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the European Union (EVFTA) commits that almost 100% of tariff lines and import turnover of the two sides will be eliminated after arelatively shortroadmap. According to calculations, the estimated revenue reduction from FTAs ​​in 2020 is about VND13,900 billion.

Another big challenge is to combat smuggling. The strong globalization trend makes the global commodity supply chain see a major shift, leading to an increase in the risk of smuggling, illegal cross-border trafficking of goods and the Covid-19 pandemic hasaccelerated this trend.

In fact, in the first months of 2020, although the pandemic broke out globally, the risk of smuggling and illegal transportation of goods is still very high. In particular, not only are there traditional tricks through direct sales, there have recently been many acts of smuggling and non-traditional trade fraud. That is, the suspects take advantage of science and technology to smuggle through online sales channels developed by e-commerce; or take advantage of the insufficient and incomplete regulations related to the origin of goods to bring foreign finished goods or finished components from abroad into Vietnam to simply assemble finished products for domestic consumption or export.

Along with that, the situation of illegal cross-border drug trafficking is a problem. Drugs are not only transported by criminals through trails, but also increasingly sophisticated tricks in which cross-border drug lines have closely linked with domestic criminals to form joint venturesto hide and transport large quantities of drugs through means of entry and exit, import-export goods.

Illegal smuggling and trade fraud activities have a great impact on budget revenues, the environment of domestic production and business, causing insecurity and harming social safety.

The two key issues mentioned above are typical of the great challenges facing the customs work in the current period and the coming years.

In the face of that situation, how has the Customs sector been reformed and transformed in order to promptly adapt and master the situation, Sir?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

The above issues are challenges, but also an opportunity for the Customs sector to continue to innovate, perfect and develop towards a modern, professionaland effective operation to perform at the same time the “dual goal”: facilitating trade activities and ensuring social security and safety, protecting the interests of the country.

The overall solution that has been focused on by the Customs sector is continuing to improve the institution and system of legal documents in the customs field; further step up the reforms of administrative procedures, modernize customs, step up the application of information technology in all professional activities; strengthening force building; improve efficiency of domestic and international coordination.

In particular, for anti-smuggling work, the affiliated units, especially the Customs control force and functional units have continuously improved their capacity, grasping and analyzing skills, evaluated and forecasted the situation and promptly developed plans, topics and projects to fight effectively.

In addition to the role of the customs control force, it is necessary to synchronize the functional forces such as: Post-customs clearance inspection; risk management; customs inspection.

The General Department of Customs continued to perform the role of the assistant agency of the Standing Agency of the National Steering Committee 389, and also the regular and irregular work of the Steering Committee 138/CP in the field of customs control.

Along with that, the Customs sector has invested and put into use modern equipment for customs control such as new generation high-speed ships; container screening system; surveillance camera system and equipment for remote management and monitoring of import and export goods.

At the same time enhancing coordination with other functional forces outside the branch such as: Police, Border Guard, Coast Guard; improve cooperation efficiency with the World Customs Organization (WCO) and Customs offices around the world.

Focus on redesigning information technology system towards "Digital Customs"

In addition to the regular task, a key task for the General Department of Customs is the overall redesign of the information technology system of the Customs sector. Why is it set to re-design the system at present, Sir?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

Implementing the general policy of the Government and the Ministry of Finance and in order to create favorable conditions for people and businesses, the General Department of Customs has promoted the application of IT in management fields. This is the driving force to build a modern and professional Vietnam Customs.

In addition to the results achieved, the IT system also revealed shortcomings and limitations, such as not covering all fields of state management of customs; the degree of integration between systems is limited; not promptly responding to changing requirements of law; lack of backup IT modules; yet to apply new technologies of the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

Meanwhile, in the future, the trend of economic integration and international trade exchange will constantly develop in both breadth and depth. The requirement to promote the application of IT to serve administrative procedure reform, reduce the clearance time for goods, as well as the modernization goal of the Customs sector in particular must be carried out more vigorously, effectively and extensively.

In the context mentioned above, to ensure the effective implementation of assigned political tasks, continue to contribute to improving the business environment, enhancing national competitiveness and improving efficiency. State management of customs, and the re-design of the overall IT system of the Customs sector has become more urgent than ever. The goal is to build a new, modern, intelligent, integrated and wide-ranging system covering all fields of state management of customs.

The General Department of Customs is urgently completing the document to submit to the Ministry of Finance's leadership for approval in order to continue to embark on the implementation of related tasks with an extremely large workload.

In order to successfully implement the set objectives and tasks, the human factor is still decisive. Can you tell us the objectives and orientations in the work of building forces and organizational structure of the whole sector?

Director General Nguyen Van Can:

During the process of formation and development, the work of building forces, streamlining the organizational structure has always been directed and implemented by the General Department of Customs in order to perfect the organizational apparatus towards a streamlined, effective and efficient operation.

In recent years, the General Department of Customs has actively reviewed and rearranged its organizational apparatus in the spirit of the Politburo's Resolution 18-NQ/TW and the Government's Resolution 39-NQ/CP. Accordingly, the entire division under the department has been removed, thereby reducing 37 divisions, teams and more than 100 titles of leaders at department and team levels; at the same time, reviewing and rearranging the organizational apparatus of the whole sector, 14 customs sub-departments and 239 teams (groups) under branches have been reduced.

The training and retraining to improve the qualifications of cadres and civil servants is always a focus of the General Department of Customs to meet the requirements of modern customs management. From 2015 to May 31, 2020 264 classes with 8,951 students were organized, including 23 autonomous classes with 860 students.

In order to meet the requirements of the new situation, the General Department of Customs determined regarding organizational structure, continue to build a modern organizational apparatus, according to the principle of centralization and consistency in accordance with the procedure reform the Customs administration and modernization process to meet the requirements of opening up international integration, socio-economic development tasks of the country.

In terms of force building, forming a modern, professional Customs force, operating effectively on the basis of a comprehensive legal system, transparent operation, integrity and efficiency; a contingent of customs officers with ethical qualities, ready to receive and successfully complete all assigned tasks.

To attach importance to improving the quality of civil servants and public employees by concretizing standards for titles and job positions; strictly implementing the evaluation and classification of civil servants according to the level and quality of the work done, not equal to or "fair-minded" in the evaluation of officials.

Pay attention tofavorable conditions in the work of training, fostering and improving the quality of the staff in both political theory and professional qualifications. Regularly organize teststo assess the real capacity and qualifications of civil servants to have appropriate training and fostering plans. Along with that is strengthening the rotation of leaders and executive officers between departments of the General Department and local customs departments.

To step up the inspection and supervision of the observance of administrative discipline by customs officers, strictly comply with the regulations on the periodical position change according to the prescribed positions, strictly and promptly handle customs officers who violate the law, violate the provisions of the Branch, or have troublesome, harassing or negative behavior.

Proud of the 75 years tradition of building and growth, on behalf of the leaders of the General Department of Customs, I propose all cadres, civil servants, employees and workers in the whole industry to unite and make efforts to strive for the common goal of building a professional, modern, proactive and steady Vietnam Customs to take on the responsibility in the new stage of development.

Thank you very much, Sir!