A meeting was held between the British Ambassador to Vietnam, Gareth Ward and Director General of the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC) Nguyen Van Can on March 3 at Vietnam Customs headquarters.

Director General Department of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Can worked with British
Ambassador to Vietnam, Gareth Ward. Photo: H.N

At the meeting, Director General Nguyen Van Can said that throughout the past year, Vietnam Customs has effectively controlled and handled consignments related to taking advantage of the policy on goods and origin by enterprises for smuggling and trade fraud. To achieve this result, Vietnam Customs has been assisted by the UK Border Force (UKBF).

Regarding training on container screening image analysisfunded by the UK for Vietnam, Director General Nguyen Van Can expressed his thanks and highly appreciated the assistance by the UKBF in surveying and training for Vietnam Customs officials. So far, funded by the UKBF, Vietnam Customs has deployed four training courses on risk identification, two of four training courses on container screening image analysis and trained 90 customs officials.

The remaining two training courses oncontainer screening image analysis are planned to be held in March 2021 in HCM City and Da Nang City. However, due to the complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic, these two courses have been postponed.

Director General Nguyen Van Can also hopes the UK will continue assisting in training for Vietnam Customs officials.

Regarding the prevention of trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora and goods infringing CITES, Director General Nguyen Van Can said that Vietnam Customs has drastically controlled and achieved many results in this work. Vietnam Customs hopesthe UK will provide information related to consignments that have risk of infringing CITES and illegally entering Vietnam to further prevent this situation in the near future.

Director General Nguyen Van Can also appreciated the UKBF’s efforts in introducing and funding the WCO’s Cargo Targeting System (CTS) for Vietnam.

This is the application to collect and store sea and air cargo manifest data, and assist customs officials in performing risk assessment for cargo manifests. It will allow identifying high-risk consignments and facilitating consignments that are not considered high-risk. Vietnam Customs is studying the operation and maintainance method of the system before reporting to the competent authorities to use this system for operational purposes.

Director General Nguyen Van Can also said that Vietnam Customs is committed to usethe four Aligent spectroscopies funded by the UKBF that are used fordetecting chemicals forcargo transported via air and sea under Customs control areas.

At the meeting, the British Ambassador to Vietnam, Gareth Ward, said that the UK agrees and wants to support Vietnam in strengthening the control and combat against smuggling and transport of wild fauna and flora infringing CITES. The UK is ready to send experts to Vietnam to assist Vietnam Customs in training and improving control capacity.

The UK also wants to establish official relationships with Vietnam, create a legal basis for promoting cooperation and mutual assistance in customs area and facilitation in trade development, Gareth Ward said.

Director General Nguyen Van Can hopes that Vietnam Customs will receive support in training, equipment and means to improve goods control and facilitate trade. Accordingly, Vietnam Customs has fiercely combated and tackled the illegal cross-border trafficking and transportation of goods, especially wildlife related items. Vietnam wants the UK to consider Vietnam's previous proposal to provide equipment for the fight against smuggling at sea.