Within the framework of the Trade Facilitation project, the General Department of Vietnam Customs cooperated with the Trade Facilitation Project (TFP) to organize a conference on training, sharing and exchanging experiences on key identification activities for goods imported and exported by sea and land routes in order to raise awareness and qualifications of customs officers and employees about key identification.

Professional activities at Cam Pha port Customs Branch
(Quang Ninh Customs Department)

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the General Department of Vietnam Customs (Risk Management Department) and the TFP Project flexibly changed the training form from face-to-face to online to suit the actual situation. The conference took place from September 27 to October 1, 2021 with the participation of nearly 70 customs officers in the sector, including some units under the General Department and some local customs departments with large import and export activities at seaports and road.

The content of the training session on risk management and key identification.

Accordingly, focusing on the following contents: the importance of understanding and mastering the stages of supply chain in international trade; risk identification matrix to support key analysis; collect information and build a risk profile in risk management activities; analyzing and determining risk criteria before, during and after goods arrive at the port; the process of developing a risk profile; Canadian and US Customs experience in applying risk management; additional knowledge in Customs' risk management on sea routes; knowledge on containers, container tracking techniques, tricks of taking advantage of containers to smuggle and transport prohibited goods, container inspection techniques.

At the conference, experts answered and clarified a number of problems of the trainees related to how the key identification division works, tools and software to support the key identification, some signs of risks on sea route, key identification skills.

At the end of the Conference, the participants understood, absorbed and grasped the contents of risk management theory and key identification following the WCO standards and the experience of Canadian and US Customs. On that basis, it was a valuable experience to research and apply to the actual situation of Vietnam Customs.

According to the Risk Management Department, in the future, the General Department of Vietnam Customs would continue to coordinate with the TFP project to strengthen training activities on risk management.

For example, improving the capacity to identify key identification for imports and exports by land, controlling risks for imported and exported goods by air (goods at the air warehouse, goods imported and exported via express delivery, international postal services).