The administrative procedures group for specialised inspections takes second place on improvement rate in both time and direct cost in the Administrative Procedure Compliance Cost Index 2020 (APCI 2020).

The model of specialised inspection reform in the direction
of the Customs is the focal point. Photo: N.L

The administrative procedures group for specialised inspections surveyed by the APCI 2020 comprises two groups of procedures for the quality inspection for import goods under the management of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and procedures for quality inspection for import goods under the management of the Ministry of Information and Communications.

According to the survey, each business needs 12.2 hours and nearly VND 2 million to carry out one procedure on specialised inspections on average.

Among the two groups of specialised inspection procedures, only the procedures group under the Ministry of Science and Technology can be connected to the Vietnam National Single Window, leading to a large difference in compliance costs for these two groups of procedures.

In 12.2 hours for implementing procedures for specialised inspections, the businesess need to spend 28.1% of the total time for preparing dossiers.

After submitting the dossier, the business still spends 2.6 hours to supplement the dossier and implement procedures after receiving results to circulate goods on the market.

The business needs to spend VND 1.9 million to carry out specialised inspection procedures on average. The direct cost for implementing procedures managed by the Ministry of Information and Communications is nearly 1.3 times higher than those managed by Ministry of Science and Technology.

In addition, the survey shows the average cost spent by 23 businesses of every 100 businesses hiring intermediary service for implementing administrative procedures related to specialised inspection is VND 5.1 million per procedure.

The cost for goods verification and inspection is highest. The unofficial costs in implementing specialised inspection procedures surveyed for 3% of the total businesses are mainly incurred in businesses conducting procedures under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Therefore, the report said ministries and branches should accelerate dissemination of legal documents related to specialised inspection, especially new regulations that need to be promptly updated on the website of management agencies together with detailed instructions.

The electronicised administrative procedures need to be improved to allow users to access and manipulate easily, even during peak hours, the file capacity of the system should be increased as the file capacity used for quality inspection of goods is very large.

In addition, the information system between the Customs authority and units implementing specialised inspection procedures should be connected, synchronised and provide a backup mechanism when errors occur.

According to a representative of the APCI research team, the specialised inspection procedures group can continue to be improved if the IT application in handling procedures is promoted and connected with Customs.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) assessed that, if the specialised inspection scheme in the direction that the Customs is the focal point for specialised inspection at the border gate to be implemented, the time for goods inspection will be cut to two days per shipment.

The implementation of this scheme is also the basis for building the database of goods quality inspection results for the Customs to apply risk management and make customs clearance decisions for shipments, thereby helping to reduce the volume of goods subject to specialised inspection.

However, a very big problem of the scheme is the coordination and delimitation of scope, tasks and powers between the customs and specialised agencies.