VAMA irked over slow online customs system

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According to the association (VAMA), since April the Vietnamese customs authority has applied a new E-customs system called VNACCS/VCIS in many provinces and cities nationwide.

According to Jesus Metelo N. Arias Jr, chairman of VAMA even though the new system has many advantages, it also has limitations.

He noted that the system has difficulties when it is overloaded with users because the inner transmission line is not fast enough to handle all the traffic.

“Invoices from VAMA members on importing spare parts for cars can include thousands of different items, and the new system only allows a maximum of 50 items per declaration paper. Therefore, importers have to fill out dozens or even hundreds of the same forms to complete the process,” he said.

Also, under the new system, after completing customs declarations at the local Customs Office, VAMA members have to do procedures at border gates before having the goods passed over to them. There, they wait for customs officers to print out their declaration papers from the network and check the list. This process takes considerable time due to the aforementioned repeating of forms and slow transmission speed.

In reality, many VAMA members said it takes around 3 to 5 minutes per document to print, therefore if the importer has 100 forms due to thousands of parts, this process could take from 5 to 8 hours.

This length of time does not include situations where the information and figures have not reached customs, even if importers show up with copies of the required dossiers.

“This takes much more time for processing, up to 2-3 days compared to before. Even customs officers have tried their best to help and support importers,” said Jesus Metelo N. Arias Jr, chairman of VAMA.

According to Arias Jr, since the new customs procedures were applied, some VAMA member factories have had to shut down for several hours at times due to a lack of spare parts.

“This hurts business and drives up manufacturing expenses,” Jesus said.

To rectify the situation, VAMA has suggested the Ministry of Finance and the customs authority instruct customs officials to allow VAMA members with declaration papers signed and sealed from local customs to receive their goods at border gates, regardless of the information coming through the online system.

VAMA added that this would give customs time to resolve current issues such as the slow transmission time.

VAMA raised this concern in April this year when it saw an increase in sales revenue of 5 per cent against the previous three months.

VAMA expects its members to have a capacity of 125,000 cars this year. By the end of April its members had domestically assembled 30,585 cars, an increase of 24 per cent on-year. Imported car purchases in 2014 have risen 89 per cent compared to the same period last year.