Latest articles

Synchronize technology infrastructure to clear the import and export congestion

2 or 3 Ministries examine an item

On the sidelines of the national conference on "Promoting the National Single Window (NSW), the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) and trade facilitation" held on 24 July 2018, the Minister of Finance cum the Deputy Head of the National Steering Committee for the ASW and the NSW Dinh Tien Dung said: Vietnam has deepened its integration into the international market with the participation of 10 free trade agreements.

In 2017, the import-export turnover of Vietnam reached $US 425 billion, by 1.9 times of GDP, so the reform of administrative procedures and trade facilitation to clear goods across borders are extremely important.

"The Government is considering those problems as a bottleneck to remove, promoting domestic production, boosting economic development, especially import and export," the Minister said.

The Government of Viet Nam has completed one step towards the institutionalization of the National Single Window mechanism, the ASEAN Single Window, and trade facilitation, but with far greater demands. Currently, 53/281 administrative procedures of 11 ministries are included in the National Single Window. Over the past four years, Vietnam has reduced 4,000 items subject to specialized inspections, reducing from 82,000 goods to 78,000 goods. This is a very big problem.

For Government efforts, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said that although the target was still far away, the authorities' efforts in trade facilitation still deserve to be appreciated by the business community.

However, in reality, the quantity of goods subjected to inspections is still high. In 4 years, we have reduced 4,000 items, but it is important that the General Department of Vietnam Customs should publicize this list and the items subject to inspections under the management of the ministries. From that review, Vietnam Customs shall find a reasonable solution, otherwise will not evaluate accurately. In addition to the number of items to be reduced, the Customs should clarify how many other items are to be included on this list.

Mr. Cung pointed out one more inadequacy is the phenomenon of duplication in specialized inspections. “The number of itemssubject to the inspections of 2 and 3 ministries accounted for 50%. This needs to be quickly changed.

One reason is that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has more than 100 documents, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade has about 30 documents. When they asked for changes, they still do not propose to change the Law.

Accordingly, the NSW actually connects very few of procedures, while multi-user procedures are not connected. The Information Portal is also connected only to those who are not connected to related parties.”

Complete the Law comprehensively

Regarding solutions, the CIEM representative suggested that the Government should have a comprehensive, radical and specific solution to amend regulations related to these issues from the Law. Some of the Ministry of Agriculture's complaints about animal and plant quarantine should also be revised, just as the case of the Ministry of Industry and Trade for formaldehyde. In addition, when the Law has not been amended, the ministries should also amend the circulars that many enterprises complain about to facilitate the business activities of enterprises.

"The goal of 2020 should be digitized in the Single Window portal. It is recommended to have an independent and strong secretariat to lead the work because of its interdisciplinary nature. The reforms can have a huge impact but we have been doing them very slowly for a long time, and this term, we should complete the reform," he proposed.

On behalf of the authorities, the Minister Dinh Tien Dung said: In order to implement the Government's Resolution 19, from 2014-2018, the Ministry of Finance firstly focused on accelerating the completion of the ministries and sectors for institutional legislation related to facilitation of goods clearance. Secondly, strengthen the connection between the ministries and the General Department of Vietnam Customs to solve administrative procedures on the e-Customs system. Thirdly, ministries and sectors must continue to cut the number of goods subject to specialized inspections, reducing from 19% to 10% according to the Government's target.

Along with that, the information technology infrastructure must be synchronized between the General Department of Vietnam Customs and the ministries. This is a very important task because Vietnam Customs now has implemented e-Customs procedures to 99% of goods, but the connection with ministries and sectors is not synchronized due to weak infrastructure. This causes difficulties for enterprises in exporting and importing goods.

Source:  Customs news