This is one of the key directions of the Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can at a conference reviewing performance in February and deploying tasks for March, held by the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC) on March 4, 2021.

Director General Department of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can speaks
at the conference. Photo : T.B

According to the GDVC, Lunar New Year holidays and the complex and prolonged development of the Covid-19 pandemic have greatly impacted import and export activities. Domestic consumption of goods has also dropped compared to the previous year. However, smuggling, trade fraud, counterfeit goods and illegal transportation of prohibited and essential goods for Lunar New Year holidays are still very complex. Especially, firecrackers, alcohol, beer, cigarettes are transported via land roads.

As the Standing office of the 389 Steering Committee of the Ministry of Finance, the GDVC advised the Ministry of Finance to work with ministries, branches and agencies to control the situation, detect and prevent smuggling and trade fraud, as well as to strengthen inspection and control on all land, sea and air routes before, during and after the Lunar New Year 2021.

In February, the illegal transportation of goods via airway is very complex, because when entering, passengers on the flight must be quarantined in accordance with regulations on disease control and prevention. Smugglers have abused this situation to illegally transport goods across the border. In addition, forces have detected many cases of drug transportation via airways in the form of gifts or donors with with sophisticated tricks like hiding drugs in paper or inside cartons.

To prevent and handle acts of smuggling and trade fraud, contributing to promoting production and business activities and protecting consumers' interests, the GDVC has directed anti-smuggling forces to strengthen the implementation of measures and work with all branches and levels in inspecting and controlling the market.

At the conference, Director General Nguyen Van Can said that in February and the anti-smuggling peak before, during and after Lunar New Year 2021, the entire Customs sector has implemented drastically, synchronously and effectively specialised measures and achieved positive results. The anti-smuggling work contributed to ensuring community security and safety and preventing revenue loss.

Facing this situation, the Director General Nguyen Van Can requested that in March and the near future, the whole sector continue to proactively and actively implement specialised measures to promptly detect and strictly handle violations. Especially, the fight against origin fraud should be perform regularly because there are increasingly sophisticated acts and tricks.

Regarding the fight against crime, anti-smuggling and trade fraud, in addition to following the directions of the Director General, the GDVC has set tasks for each unit, especially related to three the key sectors, including anti-smuggling and commercial fraud; post-clearance audit; inspection and inspectorate.

For the fight against smuggling and trade fraud, the GDVC has followed the directions, plans and programmes of the Government and the Ministry of Finance. As the Standing Office of the National Steering Committee 389, the GDVC has implemented the regular and irregular directions of the Government's Steering Committee 138/CP in the customs control area.

It has also directed and instructed the sector to well perform customs control, as well as building plans for combat smuggling in 2021, major anti-smuggling plans and schemes related to key commodities for performance.

Regarding post-clearance audits, the GDVC continues direct units to update data and results of post-clearance audits in the STQ02 system; completes the plan amending the post-clearance audit process in Decision No.575/QD-KTSTQ dated March 21, 2019 in line with reality and in a short, easy to understand manner, and in accordance with the law.

Implementing the plan of phase 4 of the thematic plan on combatting origin fraud and building a list of targeted enterprises according to assigned fields.

For inspections, the GDVC implements the plan for internal inspection and specialised inspection in 2021 under the plan approved by the Ministry of Finance. Reporting the results of thematic internal inspection for goods transferred to border gates to carry out customs procedures under the form of combined transport and checking the thematic inspection conclusion on independent transport.

In the first two months of the year, the customs sector collected VND 54,760 billion, or 17.38% of the assigned estimate, 16.54% of the desired target, an increase of 7.53% year-on-year ( VND 50,924 billion).

In February, Vietnam's total import and export value was estimated at US$42.5 billion, decreasing by 22.7% from the previous month. In which, export is estimated at $21.5 billion, dropping by 24.7%, and import is estimated at $21 billion, declining by 20.6%. However, compared to the same period in 2020, the country's export value increased by 2.4% and the import value increased by 11.6%.

In February (from January 16 to February 15), the sector tackled 1,202 violation cases. The value of infringing goods is estimated at VND 260.89 billion; the budget revenue reached VN 11,939 billion.

Customs prosecuted two cases and transferred to another agency for prosecution of six violation cases.