On the morning of October 8, the General Department of Customs held a meeting via video conference on task performance in the third quarter and task implementation of the fourth quarter in 2020. The Deputy Minister of Finance attended the meeting.

The video conference in the General Department of Customs. Photo: T. Binh

Director General of General Department of Customs Nguyen Van Can chaired the meeting. The meeting was attended by leaders of General Department of Customs, leaders of units under the General Department and representatives of local customs units at 35 video conferences.

The report at the meeting said the task performance in the third quarter saw much prosperity, contributing to improving general performance in the first nine months of the year.

Outstanding results included customs detecting and seizing a total of 12,190 violations with infringing goods valued at more than VND 3,088 billion. Customs agencies prosecuted 30 criminal cases and transferred 83 cases to other agencies and collected VND 522 billion.

Regarding State budget collection, from the beginning of the year to September 30, the customs sector collected VND 227,933 billion, equivalent to 67.45% of the estimate or 64.2% of the desired target, a year-on-year decrease of 13.15%.

Some municipal and provincial customs departments recorded good revenue in the first nine months of 2020 like Can Tho, KhanhHoa, TayNinh, Quang Ngai, BinhPhuoc and QuangNinh.

However, due to the pandemic, some customs departments which are key areas of budget collection such as HCM City, Hai Phong, Dong Nai, Quang Nam and Da Nang saw a decline compared to the same period last year.

In terms of import and export activities, the country’s total import and export turnover in the first nine months of 2020 was US$388.62 billion, exceeding 6.6 VND billion (equivalent to 1.7%) compared to the same period last year. Of which, the export value was US$202.57 billion, up 4.15 and the import value was VND 186.05 billion, down 0.7%.

Vietnam’s trade balance in the first nine months recorded the highest surplus ever of US$16.52%, higher than the surplus of US$7.27 billion in the same period in 2019

In terms of administrative reform, the General Department of Customs remains top of general departments under the Ministry of Finance.

For the national single window, as of September 30, 200 administrative procedures of 13 ministries and agencies were connected to the National Single Window with more than 3.35 million applications of more than 41.700 enterprises.

For the ASEAN Single Window, e-C/O form D is exchanged with nine ASEAN countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and the Philippines through ASEAN Single Window.

As of September 30, 2020, Vietnam received 200,641 C/Os from ASEAN countries and sent 276,134 C/Ostothem.

The Ministry of Finance is preparing technical conditions to exchange information on ASEAN customs declarations and phytosanitary certificates. According to ASEAN's plan, these two documents will be connected and exchanged in 2020.

The Ministry of Finance is preparing technical conditions toexchange customs declaration information and certificate of quarantine with ASEAN

Notably, in terms of integration of online public services of the General Department of Customs with the National Public Service Portal, all 70 procedures have been connected under the 2020 plan.

The Customs newspaper will continue to update directions of the leaders of the Ministry of Finance, leaders of the General Department of Customs and important contents of the meeting.