Ministries and branches have raised problems and proposed to revise Decree 43/2017/ND-CP on goods labels.

Phone accessories with fake origin imported from China were seized
by Hai Phong Customs in 2019. Photo: T.Binh.

Currently, the regulations governing goods label and presentation of origin for exported goods have not yet been stipulated in any legal documents, leading to a lack of legal framework for competent authorities to perform, inspect and handle them.

Regulations on mandatory information shown on original label of imported goods at the customs clearance time have not yet been issued, so the Customs faces difficulties in performing its duties.

From these shortcomings, the Ministry of Science and Technology said the development and promulgation of a decree amending and supplementing Decree 43/2017/ND-CP is necessary.

The Ministry of Science and Technology is getting opinions on the draft decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 43/2017/ND-CP.

The Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs asked the Ministry of Science and Technology to supplement provisions on presentation of label, origin for exported goods, and mandatory information to be shown on the original label of imported goods.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said the determination of the origin of exported and imported goods is specified in Decree 31/2018/ND-CP dated and other guidance circulars of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

However, regulations on presenting Vietnamese origin on exported goods and packages have not yet been issued. Therefore, customs suffers from problems in performing, inspecting and handling Vietnamese origin fraud.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposes to amend Decree 43, and review regulated entities to prevent legal loopholes, facilitating the handling for products such as exported goods, imported goods, incomplete packaged products, etc.

The Ministry of Health proposes to amend and supplement the regulations on nutritional information shown on label in Article 10 of Decree 43. The nutritional information must be presented on the label of packaged foods, including total energy; total amount of fat including saturated fat and trans fat; total amount of carbohydrates, sugar, protein and salt, and reference daily intake.

The Ministry said that the supplementation aims to protect the health of consumers.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense proposes that the supplementary label must be attached to the commodity or commercial containers for the goods of group 2, goods related to medical equipment and environmental protection.

The Ministry also asks to supplement regulations and sanctions to handle cases where the supplementary label wrongly presents goods information and the goods label printed from abroad but shows Vietnamese origin.

Regulations on codes, barcodes, conformity mark, standard mark in the direction of using software for traceability, product specification management and quality management should be supplemented in the decree.

The Ministry of Public Security proposes to supplement exported goods under the government of Decree 43, because the current regulations are easy to be abused to produce fake and poor-quality goods.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, products with high risk of fake origin are computers; electronics and components; household electrical appliances and components; phones and accessories.

Therefore, the labeling of these products is very important for consumers and importers to know the origin of products and prevent commercial fraud.

In addition, the provisions on the mandatory information shown on the label for these products have not been specified in Article 10 of Decree 43.

Therefore, the Ministry proposes that the origin of information technology, electronic and telecommunications products, and components and equipment that their value accounts from 25% or more of the product value, must be shown on the goods labels for the user/importer to know before deciding to buy, sell and use the products.