Vietnam Customs – Russian Customs promote cooperation and trade facilitation

	Revising two key circulars in Customs
	Promoting customs cooperation to prevent origin fraud
	Director General Nguyen Van Can works with Tay Ninh Customs Department

The General Director of Vietnam Customs and the Head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia sign the working minutes. Photo: Vinh Hoai

The bilateral talk aimed at strengthening the implementation of commitments on promoting trade cooperation and facilitation under the Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) signed and took effect from October 5th, 2016.

The talk also reviewed the results of bilateral cooperation between the two Customs Services under the framework of the agreement between the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Government of the Russian Federation on mutual cooperation and administrative support in customs signed in 2010.

At the talk, Can and Bulavin appreciated efforts of the two countries in fulfilling the commitments of the agreement on trade facilitation and customs administration over the past time.

Accordingly, Vietnam and Russian Customs have cooperated with the Eurasian Economic Commission to negotiate, narrow gap and make efforts to invest in building technical infrastructure and information technology to implement in practice. Therefore, the testing of completed messages and confidential communication channels has been established to exchange declarations arising under commitments.

Can and Bulavin appreciated the important role of Customs Services in implementing trade facilitation commitments and agreed on strengthening the responsibilities of Customs authorities

Accordingly, the two sides agreed to accelerate the connection of information technology system and establish a secure data transmission channel between the two sides to prepare solid infrastructure conditions for electronic exchange of customs information in second phase from October 5, 2019.

It is expected that the two sides' Customs authorities will sign a protocol to amend and supplement the protocol on electronic exchange of customs information in October 2019 as a legal basis for the implementation of the second phase

Can also affirmed Vietnam's efforts in coordinating with customs authorities to promote the implementation of the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement (VN-EAEU FTA); promoting import and export activities between the two sides and affirmed close coordination with Russian Customs and the EAEU Customs in the inspection, supervision and control of goods at risk of fraud of origin, labelling, illegal transportation between the two sides, transnational smuggling lines, especially criminals transporting narcotics and goods infringing intellectual property rights and goods infringing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), goods abusing Vietnam's origin to export to other markets to enjoy tax incentives and evade trade remedies

Vietnam is making efforts to create a fair, healthy and legal business environment for enterprises. "We are ready to coordinate with customs authorities around the world, including the Federal Customs Service of Russia to prevent smuggling and trade fraud," said Can.

Also at the talk, the leaders of the two Customs Services updated each other about the recent developments of the Customs of each country, emphasising the importance of trade facilitation accompanying with strengthening inspection and control to prevent smuggling and trade frauds, and especially to combat illegal cross-border transportation of drugs and other banned goods.

The talk. Photo: Vinh Hoai

In particular, the two Customs Services will strengthen bilateral cooperation based on the commitments in the Customs Cooperation Agreement such as cooperation in exchanging import and export statistics and exchanging information to serve investigation and anti-smuggling, cooperation in training and exchange of expert delegations to share customs administration experience.In the future, the two Customs Services hope cooperation activities between the two sides will contribute to bringing the relationship between the two countries' Customs Services to a new development step towards effective and substantive cooperation associated with bilateral trade facilitation and supply chain security and strict control to prevent smuggling and illegal cross-border transportation of banned goods.

Bulavin also expressed his unanimous support to Vietnam Customs in training cadres on topics: value, origin of goods, risk management, sniffing dog training, anti-smuggling and customs violations; exchange of information between the Customs academies and customs schools on the curriculum materials.

WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement to boost exports of MSMEs

After the talk, Can and Bulavin signed the working minutes and a joint cooperation plan in combating customs violations between Vietnam Customs and the Federal Customs Service of Russia for 2019 -2023.