Latest articles

Implementation of the National Single Window: Not as expected of enterprises

Enterprises complain about quarantine procedures

So far, with the drastic direction of the Government, the National Steering Committee for ASW, NSW and trade facilitation, the results of the National Single Window have changed and achieved positive results. This will contribute to the reform of administrative procedures and reduce the time for goods clearance. However, in reality, the change has occurred only in some ministries, sectors and specific fields, while there are many administrative procedures in the import and export sector that are barriers to the business community, although there are procedures that link with the National Portal.

By the end of May 2018, the Customs News reporter was present at the port area ofHai Phong - the largest export and import area in the North of Vietnam to record the opinion on the implementation of the NSW. Accordingly, many companies were still hesitant about the management procedures of specialized agencies through the National Portal.

Ms. H., a staff member of a company specializing in the service of export declaration procedures, said that every day, enterprises carried out more than 10 export and import declarations, mainly related to imported goods, focusing on 4 areas: chemical declaration, plant quarantine, animal quarantine, and registration for quality control of animal feed. Accordingly, the procedures are declared through the National Portal.

So the procedure is much faster than before? Ms. Huyen shared, so far only chemicals have been implemented procedures conveniently with quick results, and other procedures still take longer time to get results, even longer than before.

"With the registration procedures for plant quarantine, after registration through the National Portal, enterprises have to wait for 2 to 3 hours after receiving the order number issued by the Quarantine Authority. After obtaining the registration number, enterprises shall continue to have to file dossiers for direct examination at the quarantine offices. The registration normally takes one day. On the second day, the quarantine agency shall take the test and issue a certificate of importation to meet the import requirements. It usually takes 2 days from online registration to issuing a certificate," Ms. H. said.

Notably, according to Ms. H, although the inspection procedures are so hard, from the beginning of 2018 to now, quarantine agencies (both plants and animals) have not detected any of the shipments of enterprises which do not meet import conditions. "In fact, enterprises implementing services of export declaration are big enterprises, long-term business with high prestige, so the import of goods is strictly controlled," Ms. H. shared.

The fact that there are very few cases of violations has been a problem for many years for the specialized management agencies. For example, in September 2017, Minister cum Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung warned about this situation when inspecting the situation at Quanrantine Office No II (Hai Phong). According to the Minister, in the agency's inspection of more than 43,000 lots (from the beginning of 2017 to the time of inspection), the officers only found 23 batches of violations, equivalent to 0.053% of the total inspection shipments, which is unreasonable.

No new procedures in half a year

Assessing the performance of the NSW, at the 3rd meeting of the NSW Steering Committee on ASW and Trade Facilitation in early 2018, the Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue - Head of Steering Committee said: "Despite some achievements, the results of the NSW have been modest compared with the set targets. In 2017, only 8 of 22 administrative procedures were implemented".

In this situation, the Deputy Prime Minister requested ministries and sectors to strive to complete 130 administrative procedures in accordance with the plan set out in the Prime Minister's Decision No. 2185 / QD-TTg dated 14 November 2016. At the same time, continue to review and add new procedures to the Plan. Notably, in the first quarter of 2018, strive to implement 25 procedures.

In fact, till now, ministries have not yet implemented any new procedures. The number of deployments is still at 47 as of the end of 2017.

On the other hand, although many ministries and branches have connections with NSW, but the number of dossiers and enterprises through the NSW are still very modest.

When the Government and the Prime Minister hold a national symposium on "Solutions to promote the NSW, ASW and trade facilitation", the business community expects that it will provide the breakthrough goals and solutions so that the Single Window mechanism will become a real door for export and import activities, which is a favorable gateway for Vietnam and the business community to penetrate into the world market.

Source:  Customs News