Vietnam Customs will soon meet the objectives of the Development Strategy to 2020

	Customs updated data about price of imported automobiles
	Customs statistics on import and export in December 2018
	The Customs continues to strictly control the scrap import

General Director of General Department of Customs Nguyen Van Can

On the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2019, the General Director of General Department of Customs, Nguyen Van Can spent time sharing, analyzing and assessing the work results in 2018 and the important orientation goals for 2019, with the Customs Newspaper.

Setting a record in state budget collection

In 2018, the Customs sector has made great efforts and achieved many important results on the work side. Dear Director General, what are the outstanding results in last year?

It can be said that in 2018, all civil servants, officers and employees in the Customs sector have made efforts and achieved positive and comprehensive results in their work duties.

First of all, the Customs sector successfully completed the task of collecting state budget. In 2018, for the first time, the Customs sector reached the amount of VND 300,000 billion, exceeding the planned targets and desired targets. At the same time, continued to effectively implement the anti-revenue collection and tax debt recovery through effective implementation of synchronous management tools, such as post-clearance inspection, inspection, testing and anti-smuggling investigation.

Secondly, the administrative procedure reform and customs modernization for facilitation of import and export activities continued to improve in quality and quantity. It was also notable that the whole industry has implemented the automatic management system across the country and "coverage" in all key import-export areas. As a result, the time for goods clearance is shortened, and all the while we are improving the effectiveness and efficiency of management, actively supporting the business community for time and cost reductions in accordance with the guiding spirit of the Government and Prime Minister in Resolution 19-2018 / NQ-CP.

Thirdly, the work of anti-smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeiting have achieved many positive results. Especially, in 2018, the whole industry promptly discovered, arrested and handled 16,633 violations, with the value of infringing goods estimated at VND 1,702.4 billion (an increase of 115.61%). The amount of the state budget remittance is nearly VND 351 billion. In addition to struggling to detect and arrest, the whole industry continues to focus on the handling of violating organizations and individuals, intensifying prosecution of criminal cases for determent ... In 2018, the whole industry had 62 cases of criminal prosecutions (up 21.57% compared to 2017), transferred 133 cases (up 95.59%) to other agencies to prosecute.

Fourthly, in 2018, There was the emerging problem of import and unsold waste material in key seaport areas. With the functions and assigned tasks, the General Department of Customs promptly discovered and resolutely dealt with many violations, and proposed the Government, ministries and branches to amend, supplement and improve the mechanism and policies, related to management of imported scrap.

Fifthly, implementing drastically the arrangement and streamlining the organizational structure of units, 36 decisions were issued regulating the organizational structure of customs departments and customs control units and equivalent units belonging to 35 local customs departments and Customs Inspection Department. It continued to strengthen discipline and administrative discipline on duty, issued and strictly implemented Decision 2799/QD-TCHQ on the Regulation on inspection of public services and handling of violations by civil servants in the customs industry.

Besides, other outstanding results in 2018 can be mentioned as follows: Continuing to improve institutions on customs policies, issuing and submitting to competent authorities for issuing many important breakthrough documents such as Decree 59/2018/ND-CP, Circular 39/2018/TT-BTC ...; preparing content and coordinating to successfully organize a national online conference on "Promoting the National Single Window (NSW), ASEAN Single Window (ASW) and Trade Facilitation"; organizing successfully the seminar "Customs - Business: Connecting - Sharing - Accompanying" ...

The achievements and important results of the whole industry in 2018 are the basis and an important premise for Vietnam Customs to soon fulfill the objectives and tasks set out in the Customs Development Strategy to 2020 according to Decision 448/QD-TTg of 2011 by the Prime Minister.

As the General Director mentioned above, in 2018, the first time, the whole industry achieved the revenue of VND 300,000 billion. Can you analyze in more detail about these important results?

In 2018, the General Department of Customs was assigned the budget revenue of VND 283,000 billion from the National Assembly, the Government and the Ministry of Finance. The target of the Ministry of Finance was assigned VND 293,000 billion. As of December 31, 2018, the total tax revenue of the entire Customs sector reached VND 314,907 billion, equal to 111.27% of the estimate, equal to 107.5 of the target, an increase of 6% compared to the same period of 2017.

In addition to objective factors related to turnover growth, high oil prices ... I can not fail to mention the great effort of every staff member in the whole industry in implementing this important political task.

Striving to complete the budget revenue target in 2018, from the beginning of the year, the whole Customs sector actively implemented solutions to increase budget revenue in the spirit of Directive 555/CT-TCHQ. Along with that, continuing to effectively implement Resolution No. 01/NQ-CP and Resolution No. 19-2018/NQ-CP of the Government. Assigning targets of state budget revenue to units; solving in time arising problems under the authority related to customs procedures, tax policies, tax administration, accounting regimes, tax refund, tax exemption ... Continuing to reform and simplify administrative procedures in the field of customs, promoting customs modernization and application of information technology (IT) in the field of customs to facilitate import and export activities...

In addition to the collection work, the Customs sector also concentrates resources to effectively handle the tax debt issue. In particular, focusing on the recovery of tax debts, handling of debt deletion in accordance with regulations, strengthening measures for not generating new debts.

Modernizing customs, promoting international integration

Reforming and simplifying administrative procedures, customs modernization is both a goal and an important solution to facilitate production and business activities and help foster revenue, increase revenue for the Customs, How do you assess this work in 2018?

Regarding administrative reform, in 2018, the General Department of Customs focused on implementing drastically and synchronously solutions such as: Institutional reform; improving the quality of staff; promoting ministries and sectors to reform specialized inspection work; propagating and disseminating laws; holding dialogues with businesses; guiding, inspecting and correcting the custom’s implementation; applying modern customs management methods; promoting IT applications ... to shorten the time for goods clearance.

It can be said that the reform of administrative procedures of the Customs sector has made an important contribution to facilitating and reducing costs for businesses. In particular, the undertaking of reductions and simplifications of administrative procedures and business conditions in the field of customs, is estimated to have saved about 15 billion VND/year for the business community.

For customs modernization, the General Department of Customs has developed and implemented the activities of the mid-term evaluation plan of the Customs Sector Reform, Development and Modernization Plan in 2016- 2020 (according to the Decision 1614/QD-BTC of the Ministry of Finance in 2016). Issuing a plan for implementing compliance management activities for the period 2018-2020; Plan to deploy the development of Customs - Business partnerships and related parties in 2018.

At the same time, reviewing and re-standardizing the job placement list and job descriptions throughout the Customs industry to ensure compliance with the provisions of law and current processes. Issuing decisions on capacity requirements of 4 areas (Risk Management, Post-clearance Inspection, Handling of Violations and Anti-Smuggling)...

Along with that, enhancing modernization of customs inspection and supervision equipment. Until now, the Customs sector has purchased and put into use a lot of modern machinery and equipment, such as ships and small boats for fighting against smuggling on the sea and the rivers; container screening machines; mobile inspection vehicles; luggage scanners; 8 goods scanners; camera surveillance systems; GPS seal monitors for goods transferred from border gate to temporary import for re-export ...

In addition, IT application and online public service provision are continuing to be strengthened. Regarding IT application, we have upgraded IT systems to meet the requirenment of Decree 59/2018/ND-CP and Circular 39/2018/TT-BTC such as: 5 E-customs systems; Processing system, export production; Automatic customs management system...

Promoting the IT application in professional activities contributes to facilitating trade activities, increasing transparency, reducing time, saving costs, and enhancing competitiveness of enterprises. At the same time, we are improving the capacity of state management on Custom and realizing the objectives of the Customs Development Strategy to 2020. This is the motivation to promote administrative reform in the general policy of the Government.

The General Department of Customs not only reformed and modernized domestic the industry, but also strived to implement well the Standing Agency (National Steering Committee on ASW, NSW and trade facilitation) 389 Committee. How were these roles performed in 2018, General Director?

As a Standing Agency, in 2018, the General Department of Customs has actively coordinated, promoted and coordinated with other ministries to deploy NSW, ASW and trade facilitation. We focused on implementing the Prime Minister's conclusions at the National online Conference on Promoting NSW, ASW and Trade Facilitation in July 2018; the instructions of the Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue - Chairman of the 389 Committee at the Third Meeting (January 2018) and other meetings. Up to now, basically the main procedures related to import and export activities of ministries and branches have been connected to NSW as planned, participation in ASW of Vietnam is also implemented on time.

Regarding the management and specialized inspection of import and export goods, the Ministry of Finance (the General Department of Customs) continues to coordinate with ministries and branches to review, amend and supplement the regulations, making them suitable with international rule and practices. Especially, we are reviewing and standardizing the list of import and export goods with HS codes in accordance with Vietnam's List of Export and Import Goods. In 2018, there were 20 documents issued by the Ministry of Finance (the General Department of Customs) to give comments with other ministries and sectors to build and complete the list of management and specialized inspection.

In terms of specialized inspection procedures, in 2018, ministries and branches cut 6,776/9,926 procedures, exceeding 36% of the assigned targets in Resolution 19 in 2018, thus saving 11,642 million work days/ year, saving 5,407 billion VND.

Building strong customs force

Customs work has always been considered a sensitive operating environment, so the Customs sector has always prevented the acts and manifestations of causing trouble and harassment by customs officers during 2018, how has this problem been changed, General Director?

The General Department of Customs determines that human factors and cadre work are always a decisive factor in implementing political tasks. In order to build forces, the General Department of Customs has issued many regulations on inspection, controls and Customs supervision, for closely monitoring the implementation of units to make the comprehensive management of customs become reality, strengthening the connection between Customs at all levels,

Recently, the General Department of Customs has issued a number of regulations that implement the discipline to contribute to preventing trouble, harassment, negativity and corruption by officals in the industry. However, up to now, these regulations have revealed certain limitations, so there is a need for additional supplements. With the goal of fighting against troubles, harassment, negativity, corruption, eliminating the emotionless attitude, and lack of responsibility in the performance of public duties when serving people and businesses, in 2018 the General Department of Customs issued Decision 2799/QD-TCHQ on the Regulation on inspection of civil service and handling of violations by customs officers in the customs sector.

Regulations are issued to combat troubles, harassment, negativity, corruption in the new situation; improving the spirit and sense of responsibility of customs officers when performing public duties, and transparency in handling violations of officers. The Regulation also specifies the provisions of the law, ensuring convenience for the implementation, enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency, discipline, and prevention of negative acts in the Customs industry. The Customs officers will be more clearly aware of their compliance, professionalism in the performance of their duties and what they cannot do.

Compared to the previous documents, this Regulation has some notable new points, such as identifying more than 300 violations, corresponding to the sanctions dealing with reminding, criticizing and disciplining and forcing resignation, which regulates the process of checking public service activities.

In particular, the Regulation regulates in detail every violation of customs officers from posture, style, ceremony to customs operations ... From there, depending on the nature and level of prescribing sanctions for each corresponding violation.

In order to complete the tasks set by the Government, the Ministry of Finance in 2019, what are the key tasks that should be focused on by the whole sector, General Director?

The year 2019 has an important meaning in implementing the Customs Development Strategy to 2020 and the Customs Sector Reform, Development and Modernization Plan for the period 2016-2020.

In order to soon complete the objectives and tasks set by the Government and the Ministry of Finance, in 2019, the whole sector should continue to thoroughly grasp the objectives of reforming and simplifying administrative procedures in the Customs field in the modern direction, publicity, transparency ... to contribute to improving the business environment, improving national competitiveness.

In particular, the focus should be on three key task groups including:

First, reforming of administrative procedures and customs modernization, which focuses on: Completing policy mechanisms; continue to promote administrative reforms; projects on IT application and customs modernization; continuing to perform well the role of the Standing Committee of the 389 Committee, coordinating with other ministries and branches to complete the implementation of NSW, ASW and improve the specialized inspection as planned ...

Secondly, the task group on state management on customs. It should be focused on strengthening the effectiveness of customs management and supervision; striving to complete the assigned task of budget collection by the National Assembly, the Government and the Ministry of Finance, and continue to effectively handle tax debts; promoting application of risk management ...

Thirdly, the group of tasks of preventing and combating smuggling, trade frauds and illegal transportation of goods across borders, preventing losses of budget revenue; strengthening post-clearance inspection ...

In addition, the whole sector should continue to perform well the work of building forces, focusing on the tasks of training, retraining and improving the capacity and qualifications of cadres and civil servants; continuing to promote international cooperation programs in the Customs field ...

In order to achieve the above objectives, it requires great efforts and determination of all officials, employees and customs officers. At the same time, the Customs wants to continue to receive the attention and support of the Government, the Ministry of Finance, the coordination of other ministries, industries and business community.

Customs sector to collect VND 316 trillion in 2019 VCN - On the afternoon of January 8, 2019, chaired by the Director General Nguyen Van Can, ...

On the occasion of the New Spring of Ky Hoi 2019, on behalf of the leaders of the General Department of Customs and on behalf of individuals, through the Customs Newspaper, I would like to send my congratulations and greetings to the generations of cadres, civil servants and customs officers in all regions of the country, wishing them good health, happiness and success! We wish all civil servants and customs officers, and employees of Customs sector to strive to achieve the highest results in all aspects of work in 2019!

Thank you very much and we wish the Director General and your family a happy and prosperous year!