The General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC) recently held a consultation workshop to complete the draft decree on quality inspection and foods safety inspection for imported goods.

Deputy Director General of GDVC Mai Xuan Thanh spoke
at the workshop. Photo:T.H

Many suggestions offered 

The workshop was attended by representatives of the Trade Facilitation Project (TEP), associations, and the southern conformity assessment organizations, the GDVC’s departments as well as local departments.

At the workshop, Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh revealed the contents of the scheme on reforming the model of quality inspection and food safety inspection for imported goods and the draft decree on facilitating businesses.

Businesses said that the contents on quality inspection and food safety inspection as prescribed in the draft decree are reformed. The new contents in the draft greatly facilitate the quality inspection and food safety inspection.

Deputy Director of Quality Assurance and Testing Center 3 (QUATEST 3) Mai Van Sung said the draft decree is quite effective. However, many contents should be revised and supplemented by the drafting board. For example, the mutual recognition of international quality certificates for goods imported into Vietnam. It is necessary to specify the scope of governance is quality inspection and food safety inspection to avoid misunderstanding. According to general trends, the quality inspection is no longer performing this work in the world. The conformity assessment principle is that the goods are certified by a competent authority in one place but accepted by many other competent authorities. The recognition of inspection results is the basis for trade facilitation. The inspection will be performed by the State authority, and the certification shall be conducted by assessment and certification organisations.

In addition, some have said the provision on quantity of sample goods, taking samples for inspection should be specified and avoiding misunderstanding. Regarding the comments on sample goods, Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh said the quantity of goods sample is a difficult problem for the Customs authority as the specific provisions have not yet issued by management agencies. The GDVC hopes to receive comments from businesses on this issue.

Some firms appreciated the reduction of procedures on quality inspection and food safety inspection. However, cumbersome regulations still exist. For example, previously, the registration of product announcement was conducted at two authorities, now the draft revises to three authorities. Firms proposed that the registration should be carried out at a single focal point.

Use of the first registration code is confused 

At the workshop, some firms were confused about the use of the first registration code. They said that their imported products must go throuhg many procedures to get the first registration code, so they do not want others to use the code because they were afraid that those enterprises’ products do not meet requirements on standard, quality, affecting their brand.

Mai Van Sung Deputy Director of Quality Assurance
and Testing Center 3. Photo: T.H

Inaddtion, some firms feel confused about identical goods. Customs recorded comments from businesses about this issue.

Concluding the workshop, Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh appreciated the comments of enterprises. Many comments continue to be pointed out, the drafting board will receive comments and soon issue a new draft to businesses for complete comments, with the expectation goods are imported into Vietnam will ensure safety and protect consumers.

“When the goods are imported, they are only certified by Customs once. The procedures for inspection and certification are not required for the next imports. The item will be encrypted after being fully declared the name, origin, composition, ingredients, quarantine and verification letters, and certified by the certification body. Then, if the firm imports this item, it will be exempt from inspection and responsible for its authenticity," Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh said.