How do you evaluate the positive aspects of implementing new-generation FTAs for the Vietnamese economy?

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Huy

In recent years, promoting integration into the world economy and participating in FTAs have brought many important achievements in Vietnam’s economic development.

In the period of 2012-2023, Vietnam's import and export have achieved strong growth, contributing to improving its position in the international market.

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam's total export turnover in the past 10 years reached over US$2,000 billion with major export items such as: textiles, electronics, footwear, agricultural products, seafood, oil and gas and supporting industrial products...

In this period, Vietnam's imports also increased sharply, mainly raw materials, supplies, equipment and machinery for production and investment with a total import turnover of about US$1,900 billion.

Notably, in 2024, although import and export activities took place in a context of unpredictable economic and political fluctuations, the results in the past 10 months showed the positive growth of the economy.

According to statistics from the General Department of Vietnam Customs, as of October 31, the total import-export turnover of goods increased by 15.8% to US$ 647.87 billion year-on-year. Of which, the export turnover reached US$335.59 billion, up 14.9% and the import turnover earn US$ 312.28 billion, up 16.8% year-on-year.

As of October 31, the revenue from imports and exports saw a year-on-year increase of 14.5% to VND346,283 billion, meeting 92.3% of the estimate.

The results show that through active participation in new-generation FTAs, Vietnam has affirmed its strong determination to improve its position and deeply integrate with economies around the world, especially increase trade value thanks to incentives offered by signed FTAs.

Over the past time, the import and export tax collection has gained many remarkable achievements, ensuring correct and sufficient collection, contributing to the state revenue.

Revenue from imports accounts for a relatively high proportion in the revenue structure for the state budget, the proportion of revenue from import and export tax on total state revenue ranges between 13-14%.

Besides advantages, in your opinion, what are the challenges for the Customs?

In the context of international integration and market economy development, in addition to the basic advantages, I think that the reduction or abolishment of tariffs by FTA partners will reduce a part of the revenue from import and export, which is an important source of the state revenue.

Although tax reduction benefits domestic enterprises and consumers, in the short term it causes difficulties for the State budget, especially when alternative revenue sources have not been fully developed.

Additionally, the effectiveness of exploiting incentives from FTAs has not been as expected. The import and export activities in our country still depends heavily on a number of large markets, and the export turnover of domestic enterprises is still lower than those foreign enterprises.

In addition, the development of e-commerce and tax reduction under the committed roadmap of FTAs has led to domestic goods facing and strong competition from imported goods. At the same time, domestic production industries are suffered from fluctuations in the world market... affecting the State revenue from import and export taxes.

The FTAs signed by Vietnam enter into a period of deep tariff reductions, so that the revenues of some major industries will decrease sharply. This poses challenges in the revenue collection from imports and export activities by the Customs.

Notably, with the development of e-commerce, Vietnam is facing a situation of smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeit goods that take place extremely complicated in both scale and nature, significantly affecting domestic production, causing revenue losses and damage to legitimate businesses and consumers.

Facing the impacts, what solutions has the Customs implemented to avoid risks, improve management efficiency and prevent revenue losses in the Customs sector?

In order to overcome practical limitations, the Customs has continuously reformed and simplified administrative procedures towards modernity, openness, transparency, promptly resolved arising problems under its authority related to customs procedures, tax policies, tax management, accounting regime, tax refunds, tax exemptions, and removed difficulties to create favorable conditions for enterprises to participate in import-export activities.

The unified and drastic implementation of solutions to facilitate trade, improve the effectiveness of state management, and prevent revenue loss in the State revenue collection has brought about many results.

The Customs has promoted the modernization of e- tax collection and customs clearance 24/7 by actively promoting cooperation with banks to implement 24/7 e-tax payment, piloting tax payment through intermediary payment service providers, ensuring that taxpayers can pay taxes anytime, anywhere, and by any devices.

The Customs has advised the Ministry of Finance to issue the List of import and export goods with risks in value and the List of import and export goods with risks in classification and application of tax rates.

The development, amendment and supplementation of the Risk Management List ensures that the number of product lines, prices and codes are increasingly consistent with the reality, creating a reliable source of information for localities to note suspicions and fight against enterprises that implement under-value declaration and falsely declare codes, contributing to strengthening effective price code management, timely and correct collection for the State budget.

At the same time, continuously apply international standards and modern customs management processes to create maximum convenience for the business community while still ensuring strict supervision and management in accordance with legal regulations; research, propose and implement solutions to increase revenue and prevent revenue loss; proactively assess the impact of international integration commitments on State revenue collection.

The Customs Department regularly disseminates legal policies and encourages enterprises to voluntarily comply with customs laws during customs procedures, ensuring a transparent, fair and effective business environment.

Thank you Sir!