Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue speaks at the third meeting of the National Steering Committee for the ASEAN Single Window, National Single Window and trade facilitation on January 9 (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Vuong DinhHue chaired a meeting Hanoi on January 9, asking ministries and sectors to workharder to officially connect Vietnam with the ASEAN Single Window mechanism in2018.
He made the request at the third meeting of theNational Steering Committee for the ASEAN Single Window, National Single Windowand trade facilitation.
The committee’s standing agency reported that asof December 15, 2017, 11 ministries and sectors had implemented 47 procedureson the National Single Window mechanism, up eight procedures from 2016, andhandled more than 790,700 dossiers submitted by about 19,980 businesses. FromJanuary 1 to December 15, 2017, over 554,500 dossiers were handled, up 272percent year on year.
According to a report of the World Bank in 2017,the time for direct customs clearance for export goods at ports of entry inVietnam reduced by three hours while that for import goods were cut down by sixhours. Costs for direct customs clearance at ports of entry for one batch ofexport or import goods declined 19 USD.
Data as of December 15, 2017, show thatbusinesses saved more than 205 million USD for customs clearance procedures,over 15 million hours of storage for exports and over 33 million hours ofstorage for imports.
The Ministry of Finance said by December 2017,ministries and sectors had amended and supplemented 74 out of 87 documents onspecialised management and examination. Some documents were revised tofacilitate businesses and reduce the time for customs clearance, which wasapplauded by the business community.
In 2017, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce andIndustry (VCCI) conducted a survey to find out how companies feel about customsactivities. Accordingly, 25 percent of the 1,000 respondents said it wasdifficult and very difficult to carry out specialised examination procedureswhile only 8 percent shared the view that it was easy and very easy toundertake the procedures.
About 39 percent of the surveyed enterprisessaid there were too many regulations on specialised examination, making itdifficult for them to comply with. Meanwhile, 98 percent perceived that manyregulations did not match the reality, and 81 percent said it took a long timefor examination.
Addressing the meeting, Deputy PM Hue said it isnecessary to simultaneously facilitate trade and fight trade fraud whilepreventing red tape caused in the name of trade fraud prevention.
He asked ministries and sectors to carry out all130 new administrative procedures in 2018 as registered in the master plan forimplementing the National Single Window and the ASEAN Single Window for2016-2020.
The Deputy PM also told them to remove at least50 percent of goods from the list of items subject to specialised examination.They also have to reduce the rate of goods batches subject to specialisedexamination during customs clearance from 30-35 percent of the total batches atpresent to 15 percent in the second quarter of 2018.
A competitive and transparent environment isalso needed for many organisations to engage in testing, verifying andcertifying goods, he added.-VNA
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