Efforts underway to speed up customs procedures

The Ministry of Finance has teamed up with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and US Agency for International Development (USAID) sourcing comments from the business community upon the amended Customs Law project.

Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan acknowledged that the time needed for customs check in Vietnam was higher than in other regional countries.

“There were multiple reasons slowing customs check process, of them customs related factor accounted for around 30 per cent,” Tuan said. The amended Customs Law, he said, would strive to achieve three main targets, including the customs process reaching international standards; reforming administrative procedures and controlling risk in trade practice.

According to USAID mission director Joakim Parker, Vietnam is currently ranked 74^th among world countries in business facilitation aspect albeit the application of e-customs has helped the country shorten the time for customs check, meanwhile cargo clearance time plays a vital part in accelerating economic growth.

“If average cargo clearance time was shortened by one day, it would add 0.5 per cent to gross domestic product (GDP) growth,” Joakim noted.

In the amended Customs Law project, the content concerning customs procedure reforms has captured special attention from businesses.

Under the draft Law, the time for customs officers to check enterprise records must not exceed two working hours and handle cargo check not exceed eight working hours.

Besides, also in light of the draft Law customs declarations would be the only paper needed to show when businesses do customs procedures.

The regulations on priority enterprise regime are also a matter attracting great attention.

General Department of Customs deputy chief Vu Ngoc Anh said albeit existing Customs Law allowed custom check exemption towards priority enterprises, the conditions for enjoying the priority regime remained unclear. Thereby, the draft Law has contained regulations on priority regime towards enterprises, conditions to apply, the rights and responsibilities of customs bodies and priority regime recipients.

A stakeholder in the amended Customs Law project, PetroVietnam, assumed containing customs records up to 10 years would be unfeasible and proposed the customs sector slash the time for keeping files to at most five years and consider e-storage of these files.

Chairwoman of tax consulting firm C&A Dang Thi Binh An proposed the amended Customs Law be added with regulations on the rights and obligations of the agents handling customs declaration services to enhance professionalism.

Besides, the Law should clarify the responsibilities of customs bodies and head of inspection team about check results and give opportunities for involving businesses/individuals to explain check results.