Vaccines against the Covid-19 virus are seen as the most necessary and important solution to prevent the disease. The Vietnam Customs sector has made efforts, timely supported and facilitated procedures to aid the vaccination programme.

The vaccine shipment is disinfected before arriving at VNVC's storage. Photo: ST

Working closely to bring the vaccine to Vietnam as quickly as possible

From the early days, the Customs authority has contributed many ideas to the policies on purchasing, importing, and organising for receiving vaccine shipments. For example, proposing importing vaccines for ASEAN countries; implementing Resolution 21/NQ-CP on the purchasing and use of vaccines against the Covid-19 pandemic; proposing vaccine supply chain in APEC; developing a plan on receiving funding and vaccinating against the Covid-19 pandemic of the Ministry of Health; formulating the Resolution of the Government on socialisation mechanisms and policies for purchasing, importing and injection of Covid-19 vaccines; Pfizer's vaccine supply agreement; the selection of contractors for the purchase of vaccines; formulating a resolution of the Government on purchasing the Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca; participating in the policy of conducting urgent procedures to receive Moderna vaccine under the CovaxFacility mechanism of the Ministry of Health.

In addition, the General Department of Vietnam Customs regularly summarises, reports and works with units in providing data related to the import of Covid-19 vaccines, serving for the direction, management and administration of the Government, the Prime Minister, ministries and sectors and communication in pandemic prevention.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs has directed and guided customs units in facilitating the clearance of Covid-19 vaccine shipments. In particular, closely following the direction of the Government, the Prime Minister, current regulations and opinions of the Ministry of Health, ministries and sectors, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has directed and guided provincial Customs Departments to facilitate and prioritise to perform quick cargo clearance for goods for pandemic prevention in general and Covid-19 vaccine in particular. For example, applying the form of exemption from physical inspection for shipments of Covid-19 vaccines; allowing businesses to bring shipments requiring special preservation like medicines, vaccines, etc., which require storage at temperatures of 2°C-8°C to storage location as requested by the enterprise and conduct physical inspection for those shipments; direct Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airport Customs Branches to create all favourable conditions for quick clearance of imported vaccine shipments for pandemic prevention.

According to the Steering Committee for the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign, as of August 10, there were 18,122,000 doses of vaccine that had arrived in Vietnam from different sources.

Debottlenecking import and export activities

The pandemic is causing difficulties for businesses in production, export and import activities and also difficulties for Customs authorities in management and supervision of import and export goods. To overcome difficulties, the Customs sector promptly directed and guided to solve problems arising in the implementation process.

To facilitate customs declarants in solving difficulties when implementing clearance procedures, General Department of Vietnam Customs has directed units in the industry to develop solutions for implementing customs procedures to assign and arrange forces to handle customs procedures for export and import goods. Also, avoiding the interruption of cargo clearance, supply chain of goods, support maximum for businesses but still ensuring customs management following the direction of the Government and Ministry of Finance.

At the same time, direct Customs departments of provinces and cities to receive electronic documents (scanned copies certified by digital signatures) under customs dossiers for processing cargo clearance and establishing support and handling teams for solving customs procedures of import and export goods attached with lists of officials and phone numbers from the General Department, Customs Department to the sub-department level working 24/7 to promptly receive and handle problems of customs declarants. Ensuring quick clearance of goods, especially goods serving for pandemic prevention such as medical supplies, equipment, new medicines, and vaccines.

To remove and solve the congestion of goods at Cat Lai port (HCM City), General Department of Vietnam Customs has issued Official Letter 3847/TCHQ-GSQL guiding on the implementation. At the same time, they are urgently developing and submitting to the Ministry of Finance for promulgation of Circular "Regulations on customs supervision of imported goods transshipped from border gate to border gate in case imported goods are stuck at the seaport where applying social distancing under Directive 16/CT-TTg dated March 31, 2020 of the Prime Minister” to create a legal basis to solve difficulties for the businesses community.

In addition, to create favourable conditions for customs brokers to carry out customs procedures as well as customs units in the complex pandemic situation, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has directed provincial and municipal customs departments to not conduct on-site inspections on the operation conditions of customs broker at the firm; requesting the firm to provide all the original dossiers related to the conditions of customs broker’s operation and send it to the General Department of Vietnam Customs to serve the inspection of the conditions of customs agent operation as prescribed. After the inspection, the General Department of Vietnam Customs will return all original documents to the firm.

At the same time, removing difficulties in inspecting preservation of goods at storage locations in the blocked areas, the General Department of Vietnam Customs directed the customs units not to temporarily inspect preservation of goods at the storage location of goods in the blockade areas until these areas are lifted. Units should strengthen the work of information collection and risk assessment to have appropriate measures to handle in time for strictly managing delivery of goods for storage.