The prevailing ccustoms laws have not stipulated procedures for imports and exports in e-commerce transactions.

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Classifying goods into groups for management

E-commerce imports and exports are declared and go through customs procedures (information indicators, documentary checks, physical inspection of goods, amendments and supplements) under the general regulations for imports and exports.

However, the imported and exported goods in e-commerce transactions are goods directly bought from e-commerce platforms and websites and delivered to the buyer’s address and are mainly consumer goods with low value and traded in discount periods. The customs declarant is the owner of e-commerce floors, websites and customs agents.

Therefore, in the Decree on management of e-commerce imports and exports, there must be specific and appropriate regulations on each commodity group, information indicators must be more simple and physical inspection must based on risk management principles and mainly conducted by scanning machines.

Accordingly, the draft Decree stipulates basic contents like: classifying import and export groups based on international experience and practices and their risk levels to carry out customs procedures.

For exports: Group 1: Goods not subject to specialized management and inspection; Group 2: Goods subject to specialized management and inspection.

For imports: Group 1 includes goods with customs value from VND1,000,000 and less and free from physical inspection as described; Group 2 includes goods that are not in group 1.

Procedures will be simplified

Regarding procedures, the Ministry of Finance (General Department of Customs) said because the information about the importer, exporter, goods (value, payment, delivery conditions) and means of transportation of goods have been detailed in the order information, payment information and shipping information which have been sent to the system, the customs dossier is more simple.

For group 1 exports, the draft stipulates that the customs dossier includes only the customs declaration. In the process of carrying out customs procedures for exported and imported goods, if the Customs authority suspects declared information is incorrect, they will check the system's database (the customs declarant is not required to present relevant documents).

Customs procedures for group 1 will be different from those in group 2. The criteria for information declared on the customs declaration for group 1 are less than that for group 2.

The criteria of information declared on the customs declaration for group 1 exports is more simple than those for group 2 in order to reduce customs clearance procedures and time and facilitate export activities.

At the same time, group 1 is basically exempt from dossier inspection and physical inspection.

The draft decree also stipulates that customs declarants are allowed to make one customs declaration for multiple orders belonging to the same group of goods (ie, goods of many goods owners declared on the same customs declaration).

The supervision of imported and exported goods via e-commerce is carried out from the time the goods complete export procedures to the time they are actually exported, and from the time the goods arrive at the first import border gate to the time the goods are cleared.

Accordingly, for imported goods, screening will be carried out at the border gate to control and detect goods on the list of banned imports such as drugs, weapons, etc.

Procedures for supervision between warehouses and port operators and the Customs authority are exchanged on the System. At the same time, goods are mainly inspected through scanning machines.