Professional activities at Hon Gai port Customs Branch, Quang Ninh Customs Department. Photo: Thái Bình

Talking to a reporter, the leader of Quang Ninh Customs Department acknowledged that existing IT systems that were built and deployed in the past have not applied the technologies of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (such as AI, Big Data, Blockchain, IoT). They do not meet the requirements of Digital Customs or Smart Customs, as well as the requirements of fully implementing e-Government under the general direction of the Politburo, Government, and Ministry of Finance.

In addition, it did not fully digitalize and exploit to meet the need of information exchange between the National Single Window mechanism and relevant parties. Furthermore, the data were arranged separately based on the field of administrative procedures in each ministry and sector.

Recently, for the Digital Transformation Plan to 2025, with a vision to 2030, Quang Ninh Customs Department set an objective of implementing digital transformation in customs operations thoroughly and synchronously with the transformation of enterprises towards centralization, modernization and automation of the management, consulting and implementation of customs inspection, supervision and control.

Along with that, simple customs procedures are maximally digitized while business areas are integrated, interconnected, and highly automated. Pre-inspection and post-clearance audits are promoted, reducing the rate of inspection when carrying out customs procedures with modern equipment to minimize human intervention in the cargo clearance process.

Regarding digital transformation in the implementation of customs procedures, Quang Ninh Customs actively participates in the overall redesign of the IT system to meet the requirements of performing customs operations towards Digital Customs and information security.

Accordingly, customs procedures are carried out between Customs authorities and import-export enterprises entirely in a digital environment (paperless), anytime, anywhere; automated management of customs operations in the digital environment during the entire process of carrying out customs procedures, ensuring management throughout from the beginning to the end for exports, imports and transit goods; means of transport on exit, entry and in transit.

For example, 100% of the documents in the customs dossiers are converted into digital data (except for confidential records and documents of individuals who cannot participate in digital customs) and basic customs control documents are converted to electronic data, moving towards digitization.

In addition, in terms of tax administration, the collection, analysis, evaluation, construction, use and management of a centralized database should be unified on codes of goods, tax rates, customs valuation, tax debt management, fulfilling tax obligations and other state revenues. Tax and financial obligations in the management of exports, imports and transit goods, means of transport on entry, exit and in transit are automatically managed.

At the same time, automating the application of tax exemption, reduction, refund, collection and not collect tax to the right subjects and comply with the law; information management, analysis, evaluation and forecast based on big data, serving for statistical work and unified administration; reform in the development of import and export tariff schedules in the form of electronic and digitalization to ensure transparency.