Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan speaks at the Workshop. Photo: T.H

On November 21, in Ho Chi Minh City, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Customs Au Anh Tuan chaired a workshop to collect opinions from Southern Customs units on the draft Decree amending and supplementing Decree 08/2015/ND-CP dated January 21, 2015 of the Government detailing and implementing measures for the Customs Law on customs procedures, inspection, supervision and control; the draft Circular amending and supplementing Circular No. 38/2015/TT-BTC dated March 25, 2015 and Circular No. 39/2018/TT-BTC dated April 20, 2018 of the Minister of Finance.

Inadequacies and directions for amending legal regulations

Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan emphasized that Decree 08/2015/ND-CP and Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC, issued since 2015, have basically created legal conditions for the Customs authority to carry out state management of customs for import and export goods; at the same time, creating favorable conditions for the business community in import and export activities.

However, in the implementation process, some inadequacies have arisen. In fact, in the process of carrying out customs clearance of goods, some local customs units have also encountered many difficulties and problems, focusing on on-site import and export procedures. The General Department of Customs has issued many documents providing specific guidance for local customs units to implement.

According to Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan, the unit in charge of drafting the Decree amending and supplementing Decree 08/2015/ND-CP and Circular amending and supplementing Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC, Circular 39/2018/TT-BTC, the draft has received comments from officials and civil servants in the entire sector, as well as the business community many times. The draft has also been submitted to the Government twice, and the members of the government have basically agreed, however, there are still concerns about the related content in Article 35, especially point c, clause 1 of this article.

Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan chaired the workshop. Photo: T.H

Therefore, in order to improve the regulations and measures for implementing the Customs Law on customs procedures; customs inspection, supervision and control, aiming to facilitate import and export activities, the General Department of Customs continues to collect opinions from customs units and enterprises to complete the draft content.

“In the past, some problems have arisen related to on-site import and export. In fact, on-site import and export goods do not move across the border, so they are not truly import and export. Therefore, it is necessary to review, evaluate and amend and supplement them to suit the reality and international practices” - Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan emphasized.

In addition, according to the Deputy Director General, the Customs sector is implementing the Customs Development Strategy to 2030 approved by the Prime Minister. Accordingly, the General Department of Customs has closely followed the implementation of the objectives with the model of Digital Customs, Smart Customs, towards a paperless environment in state management of customs, so the completion of legal documents to suit the management practice.

Deputy Director of Binh Duong Customs Department Nguyen Thanh Binh gave comments at the workshop. Photo: T.H

Practical comments from Southern Customs units

After the representative of the Customs Supervision and Management Department - General Department of Customs introduced some main contents of the draft of amendments and supplements to the decree and circular, the representative of the local Customs Departments said that the General Department of Customs has received many comments from these units to include in the draft; at the same time, participated in giving specific comments on each content of the provisions, as well as assessing the specific impacts of the amendments and supplements.

Deputy Director of Binh Duong Customs Department Nguyen Thanh Binh said that regarding the contents of the draft that the General Department of Customs is consulting today, Binh Duong Customs Department is very interested and has organized to collect comments from Customs officers in the unit, as well as comments from the business community carrying out procedures in the area.

Based on actual operations, Binh Duong Customs Department has commented on many contents related to the contents of the draft 2 circulars. In particular, regarding the responsibility of customs declarants (Article 51), Binh Duong Customs Department proposed to add regulations for cases where goods are packed in containers transported by rail and there is a change in the method of transportation, means of transportation at locations outside the border gate area, inland container depot (ICD), and customs inspection and supervision locations.

Because, in reality, there are currently cases of goods transported by rail from the northern road border gates to railway stations to change the method and means of transport by road to the exit border gates to go abroad.

“However, the locations belonging to the railway stations have not been granted customs location codes nor have they established a Customs unit that is responsible for managing and supervising goods transported at the station. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement the above regulations to ensure the legal basis for implementation” - the representative of Binh Duong Customs Department emphasized.

At the conference, local customs units also proposed that there should be specific regulations to strictly manage customs clearance staff who doesn’t belong to customs clearance agents. It is recommended that these declarants must be granted a practice certificate and a code number to perform their duties, etc.

In addition to receiving many comments, at the conference, Deputy Director General Au Anh Tuan and representatives of the departments and professional bureaus of the General Department of Customs immediately answered the questions raised by local Customs at the conference.