Shortly after the Prime Minister issued Decision 38/QD-TTg assigning the Ministry of Finance to work with other relevant bodies to draft a decree on specialized inspection, the ministry assigned the General Department of Customs to promptly draft a decree to this effect and submit it to the Government in the second quarter of 2021.

The General Department of Customs hosted many face-to-face and online meetings and conferences to collect comments on the draft decree, attended by the Drafting Board, the Editing Team, representatives of concerned agencies, the Office of Government, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), business associations, local customs authorities, and conformity assessment agencies.

Basically, most participants expressed their high agreement with the Government's reform requirements. Through discussions with VCCI, up to 92% of consulted enterprises agreed on the draft decree. Some ministries and sectors still had different opinions on the content of specialized inspection reforms.

The General Department of Customs has seriously synthesized, analyzed and absorbed comments and also provided specific explanations for comments to amend the draft decree. Currently, the draft has been completed and sent to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal in accordance with the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents.

The draft decree is built on the principle of seven reform contents approved by the Prime Minister in Decision 38/QD-TTg. The contents specified in the draft decree do not change but enhance State management specified in the Law on Product and Goods Quality, the Law on Food Safety, the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations and specialized laws by strengthening connectivity and sharing of information between State agencies, applying information technology systems to simplify and modernize inspection procedures, ensure information transparency, and ensure full and effective application of advanced inspection methods.

The new ruling aims to reduce costs and customs clearance time, facilitate imports but still ensure effective governmental management, reasonably protect domestic production, public health, environment and national security by ensuring compliance with current laws, international practices and international conventions/agreements that Vietnam signed and joined.

The draft decree stipulates contents that clarify the role of customs agencies in inspection of quality and food safety of imported goods as expressed through construction and operation of customs software on the National Single Window Portal to automatically: receive records of quality inspection and food safety inspection; decide on inspection methods on the basis of collecting and processing data on quality inspection and food safety inspection; transfer records to designated conformity inspection agencies and certification agencies; and ensure information disclosure, transparency, connectivity and data sharing with relevant ministries, sectors and agencies. Accordingly, inspection processes and procedures will be electronic and businesses do not have to submit documents to physical offices as they do now.