Thanh stressed that Vietnam - EU economic and commercial ties are growing rapidly, especially since the EVFTA Agreement officially took effect on August 1, 2020. After one year of EVFTA enforcement, despite the globally complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic, which produced a significant impact on Vietnam and the EU, the two-way import and export performance still grew up.

Over the past time, the General Department of Customs has carried out many solutions to modernize and simplify customs procedures and improve working quality and performance. When applying trade facilitation measures, it has received supports from international organizations as from the British Embassy to complete procedures for ratification of the TFA Agreement, from the World Bank (WB) to build the Vietnam Trade Portal, from the International Trade Center (ITC) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to assess and strengthen of the pre-determination system in Vietnam, from the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (GATF) to assist the clearance guarantee mechanism, and most recently from the USAID with the Trade Facilitation Project (TFP).

Remarking on trade facilitation, Mr. Carsten Schittek, Counselor of the EU Delegation to Vietnam, acknowledged and highly appreciated GDC's efforts in facilitating trade and customs clearance of goods in general and customs clearance of goods between Vietnam - EU in particular.