To help enterprises export lychee by air through Noi Bai international airport, authorities, including Noi Bai Customs, have implemented many solutions for quick clearance and pandemic prevention.

Vietnamese lychees are sold at supermarkets in Japan.

According to Deputy Director of Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch Nguyen Xuan Tien, lychee needs to be well preserved to keep their appearance and color when arriving at the export market, so fast clearance for lychee shipments plays an important role. The unit always arranges officials on duty to ensure timely customs clearance for import and export shipments, especially agricultural and fresh products.

Tien said the change of the process helps reduce the time and cost of processing and preliminary processing and human resource arrangement to supervise, conduct plant quarantine and licensing on the spot for export shipments at Noi Bai international airport border gate make customs process easier and faster.

As well as ensuring customs management and facilitating import and export of goods, Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch has also strictly implemented safety measures to prevent and control the pandemic; equipped essential tools and means to ensure safety for customs officers in performing their duties; and complied with regulations on disinfection and masks at workplaces and public places.

Professional activities of the officials of Noi Bai international airport customs branch.
Photo: N.Linh

The customs branch has arranged officials and employees to work in shifts to ensure pandemic prevention and settle work each day.

Previously, for lychee from the "pandemic center" to be exported abroad, the authorities and units of Bac Giang have developed a lychee production plan that ensures safety to ensure safety against Covid-19 with synchronous measures like encouraging people in lychee areas not to go out of the area, focusing on lychee production and consumption; establishing checkpoints to control Covid-19 for people and vehicles entering concentrated lychee areas and conducting medical inspection of planting area codes, garden owners, packing and preliminary processing facilities, drivers and means of transport, workers participating in the collection, packing and transportation of lychee. Lychee exported to Japan must be treated with Methyl Bromide.

There are four lychee treatment facilities with five processing chambers of Ameii Vietnam Company, Red Dragon Co., Ltd., Global Company and SNK 1 Quarantine Centre, helping increase the total processing capacity to many times higher than 2020 (last year, it was only 7.5 tonnes per day).

The lychee crop 2021 has many improvements like adding the number of processing chambers; process changes to reduce processing time and costs; arrange human resources to supervise, plant quarantine and issue certificates on the spot; ensure human resources stationed in place and safe to prevent the pandemic so that quarantine officers can work with peace of mind in the situation that the Covid-19 pandemic is still complex.

According to statistics from the Plant Protection Department, as of May 29, 50 tonnes of lychee were exported to Japan. According to plans sent by businesses to the department, the amount of lychee exported to Japan will be about 800 tonnes to 1,000 tonnes.

Not only Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch, units under Hanoi Customs Department have also requested to strictly implement pandemic prevention and control while ensuring the clearance of import and export goods.

Specifically, following the directions of the General Department of Customs in Official Dispatch No. 2558/TCHQ-VP dated May 27, 2021 on the implementation of measures to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic, Hanoi Customs Department has requested its subordinate units to continue follow anti-pandemic measures in accordance with the guiding documents of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance, the direction of the local authorities and the Steering Committee for Covid-19 Pandemic Prevention and Control , Hanoi Customs Department; enhance online meetings, work from home to ensure the unit’s operation.

Review, supplement and adjust (if necessary) the scenarios prepared by the unit in case there is F0 at the unit, to ensure the state management of customs;;

Promptly handle and report problems beyond their competence to ensure customs clearance of import and export goods; anti-smuggling and commercial fraud.

Particularly for affiliated units, suspend all meetings and conferences, activities with large gatherings at the agency's headquarters; if there is a need to open a meeting, heads of units must report it to the department’s leader to organise an online meeting.

Heads of units assign and arrange cadres, civil servants, public employees and employees under their management to work on rotation basis and work from home according to the instructions in Official Dispatch No. 3756/BTC- TCCB dated March 31, 2020 of the Ministry of Finance on the work performance in the context of prevention and control of the Covid-19 pandemic, while ensuring smooth operations.