Carrying out the State management of customs in an important traffic gateway area of both the central region and Central Highlands and a major tourist centre of the country, the Da Nang Customs Department has implemented effective administrative reform of the Customs sector. Especially with its achievements in the last 10 years, the Da Nang Customs Department has been awarded the Certificate of Merit by the People's Committee of Da Nang City for outstanding achievements in State administrative reform.

The Da Nang Customs Department has always focused on building the image
of customs officers. Photo: provided by the Da Nang Customs

The regional centre operates the system VNACCS / VCIS server

According to Deputy Director of Da Nang Customs Department Tran Van Anh, administrative reform and the application of information technology (IT) are the top tasks for the department. By doing this well, the Da Nang Customs Department has created favourable conditions for immigration, import and export activities in its management area, helping people and enterprises reduce paperwork, reduce time, and reduce cost; fundamentally change management methods, improve management capacity, effectiveness, efficiency for serving people and enterprises, contributing to the general development of the city.

In fact, over the past 10 years, customs modernisation and IT application have been the key tasks of the Da Nang Customs Department. Most customs procedures are done through an electronic environment. The strongest administrative reform in the past five years was the implementation of the automatic customs clearance system VNACCS/VCIS in Da Nang by the Customs sector on April 18, 2014. Next, was the launch of the online public service system on February 2, 2017. By the end of third quarter of 2020, Da Nang Customs Department had 608,509 dossiers received, processed and returned results through these systems. Of which, nearly 100% of electronic customs declarations, 602,001 declarations which were cleared through the system with the proportion of Green channel accounting for 49.75%, Yellow channel accounting for 43.2% and Red channel accounting for 7.05%. The satisfaction assessed by the business community and citisens at the city's administrative reform website is 100%. In addition, at present, there are 30 commercial banks participating in the electronic tax payment portal and 24/7 clearance.

Continuing its achievements in IT application, the Customs unit has ensured smooth operation of National Single Window (NSW) and ASEAN Single Window (ASW) for six countries in the region (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and Cambodia) and actively increased in both quality and quantity. Promoting the National Single Window connection by air and sea, up to now, 29 out of 29 airlines and all shipping lines have updated information on aircraft, ships, and passengers on entry and exit.

In addition, Da Nang Customs Department has deployed automatic cargo monitoring system VASSCM at seaports since 2017. By air, the Da Nang Customs Department has organised a standard connecting warehouse businesses, ensuring readiness to connect with the General Department of Customs. Currently, the systems are operated 24/7 to help enterprises access information quickly and conveniently; reduce travel time; reduce costs of records, papers, printing; avoid troubles, harassment; timely and accurate tax liquidity; and shorten goods clearance time.

In addition to the deployment of IT systems, every year, the officials of the Da Nang Customs Department have many initiatives to reform and build many IT applications to support the administration and direction such as: deploying the system of Microsoft Teams to serve online meeting in the new situation; management and administration system, a quick data reporting system serving the direction and administration of the department's leaders; air focussing analysis support tool; synchronous solutions to improve the availability and security of the system for customs IT systems and security systems for server rooms.

With these results, the Da Nang Customs has been selected by the General Department of Customs as the regional centre, operating the Bass Server navigating VNACCS/VCIS system for six Central Customs Departments from Quang Binh to Quang Ngai.

A team of experts in seven sectors of work

In tandem with customs modernisation and IT application, in the past 10 years, the Da Nang Customs Department has implemented the administrative reform of the Customs sector and the city. In particular, in the reform of the organisation, the Da Nang Customs Department has reviewed the position, functions, tasks, powers, organisational structure and payroll of the unit; reorganise the organisational apparatus of the department and sub-departments in accordance with the regulations and roadmap in the decisions of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs.

Compared to 2015, the apparatus of the department decreased by one sub-department, and seven groups/teams. The quality of human resources is also increasingly improved, reflected in the fact that the unit has built, managed and used a team of experts in seven working areas (tax, management supervision, post-customs clearance inspection, IT, risk management, inspection, customs control). This is a core team to advise in professional performance.

With such reform efforts, the Da Nang Customs Department is the unit for many consecutive years reaching the leading position in the administrative reform results. The Da Nang Customs Department is one of two central agencies participating in the administrative reform ranking that has just received a Certificate of Merit from the Chairman of the People's Committee of Da Nang City for 2011-2020.