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Temporary stop importing virtual cash machines: Ministry of Industry and Trade think 'reverse'

Many agreed to halt imports

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has just submitted a submission to the Prime Minister regarding the management of imported automatic data processing machines. Earlier, the Office of the Government issued a statement informing Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung on strengthening the management of Bitcoin-related activities and other similar virtual currencies. Accordingly, the Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade to assume the prime responsibility, and coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and concerned agencies in studying and considering the temporary import of data processing machines automatically exploiting virtual money according to its competence and regulations.

In the submission to the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has led a series of comments of the ministries commenting on the measure of stopping the virtual machines. Specifically, the State Bank of Vietnam and the Ministry of Finance agreed to temporarily stop importing virtual cash machines. According to the General Department of Customs (the Ministry of Finance): Currently, the customs sector is applying risk management in the professional customs work and, in the cases of determining the goods subject to suspension of import, officials will analyze and evaluate the import situation in order to have appropriate management measures, limiting the impact on importers of products with the same HS code. In the coming time, if the Ministry of Industry and Trade puts this item into the temporary suspension of import, the Customs Department will carry out a review of the List of Import and Export Goods and propose the addition of a new classification code for this item for the work of management.

In order to ensure uniformity in management, avoiding the case of enterprises taking advantage of the production and assembly of virtual cash dispensers, the General Department of Customs requests the Ministry of Industry and Trade to report to the Prime Minister for additionally banning production and assembly activities of virtual machines in Vietnam. With the amount of machines imported, the General Department of Customs asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to strengthen the management measures such as whether to continue to use or not to issue licenses to manage...

Around this issue, the Ministry of Public Security also agreed with the petition to suspend importing virtual cash machines. According to the Ministry of Public Security, currently on the market, VGA card manufacturers offer dedicated cards exclusively for the purpose of exploiting virtual currency. Therefore, these devices must also be attached with an import classification code (HS code) to manage and suspend imports.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has a more detailed analysis: Virtual cash dispensers are divided into two main categories: ASIC Excavator and VGA Excavator. As for ASIC excavators, specialized excavators are only produced for the purpose of virtual cash dispensing, the use of administrative penalties for suspension is appropriate and feasible. However, with the VGA digger - a digger with functional blocks, assembled like conventional PCs, the Ministry of Information and Communication recommends "not implementing measures to limit imports”. The reason is specifically because determining the classification code of goods imported for this commodity cannot be done. If this measure is implemented, enterprises will face many difficulties and obstacles in import-export activities, affecting production and business.

Ministry of Industry and Trade "reverse"

While many ministries and branches agree with the viewpoint of suspending import of virtual cash dispensers, the Ministry of Industry and Trade makes a rather different argument.

According to this set, the extent of the effect of the measure to suspend imports with group code HS 8471.80.90 is very wide. According to customs statistics, with the HS code 8471.80.90, in 2017, Vietnam imported more than 27.2 million products and in the first five months of 2018 imported more than 15 million products. Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has stated that the application of import suspension measures while the Ministry of Finance has not yet identified the specific HS code for items that need to be managed will not be in line with Clause 4, Article 5 of the Law on Management Foreign Trade. That is import and export goods must be regulated and announced in detail corresponding to the classification of goods in the list of export goods of Vietnam in accordance with the law on customs. Moreover, machines and equipment used to dig virtual money are multipurpose items, used in various activities. Therefore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is worried that the suspension of imports will cause negative impact, affecting production and business of enterprises using these devices.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, there are no specific regulations on domestic management of virtual currencies as well as on production and business activities and the use of automatic data processing machines, virtual money casinos. Therefore, the suspension of imports, if applied, will not be comprehensive and effective, will not achieve management objectives due to the variety of virtual digging equipment, especially in the Network 4.0 and the current technology boom.

From the above arguments, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed the Prime Minister should not apply the measure of stopping imports of virtual cash dispensers. The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to assign the Ministry of Finance to study the classification and application of commodity codes (HS codes) for virtual cash dispensers as a basis for applying appropriate management measures. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Trade also proposed to assign the Ministry of Justice with relevant ministries to set up a legal framework for the issuance of legal documents for strict management and regulation of sanctions for violations. It's about digging, trading and investing virtual currencies as well as other similar products.

Source: Customs News