On April 13, at an online conference on the deployment of Decision No. 3272/QĐ-TCHQ stipulating on import-export goods inspection by container scanning machines (Decision 3272), Deputy Director General Mai Xuan Thanh requested the advisory units to have plans for removing difficulties for local customs departments.

Scene at the headquarter of General Department of Vietnam Customs. Photo: Q.H

Participating in the online conference, there were six connection points including General Department of Vietnam Customs (units and Customs Department of Hanoi and Hai Phong) and five connection points at Customs Departments: Lang Son, Da Nang, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and HCM City.

Publicise list of containers subjected to scanning

At the conference, presenting a report on the implementation of Decision 3272, Director of the Risk Management Department Nguyen Nhat Kha (General Department of Vietnam Customs) said with the role of coordinating, guiding and directing the selection, inspecting goods with container scanning machine, the Risk Management Department has worked with relevant professional units to establish a focal group for scanning at 35 provincial and municipal customs departments as well as set up a supply mechanism and exchanging information via internal email and phone to ensure the selection and scanning activities are unified throughout the sector.

Every day, the Risk Management Department receives information about scanning requests from the provincial Customs Departments that equipped with container scanning machine and Customs Control and Supervision Department; coordinates with the Customs Information Technology and Statistics Department to publicise the list of containers subjected to scanning on the website of the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

At the same time, functional departments of the Risk Management Department coordinate with the customs branches and the Customs Enforcement Team to coordinate scanning goods activities, creating maximum favourable conditions for firms to perform containers scanning that are located at seaports or scanning located at inspection locations outside the border gates, appropriate with the shipping routes, conditions and situation of firms.

The Risk Management Department has worked closely with the Customs Departments of the provinces and cities equipped with scanning machines to enhance risk analysis, select containers to perform scanning by sea route, road route; regularly monitor and supervise the implementation of scanning and physical inspection of cases with suspicious signs through scanning.

Nguyen Nhat Kha emphasised that the scanning and selection activities in the whole sector have been put in order, initially improving the efficiency and indeed the effectiveness of scanning.

The coordination of information exchange has gradually come into order. The units under the Risk Management Department have regularly discussed with the Risk Management Division, the Customs Enforcement Team, the customs branches performing declaration registration and the customs branch where goods are stored to grasp the information, exchanging problems and handling measures. It has contributed to scanning to achieve encouraging results.

Cutting time and costs for businesses

The conference listened to representatives of Customs Departments of Lang Son, Hanoi, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and HCM City to present problems in the scanning process.

Local customs departments participated to the discussion at the online conference.
Photo: Q.H

Focusing on groups of problems such as handling when the scanning machine has problems and spending for loading and unloading, transporting containers for scanning; selecting containers for conducting pre-scanning; selecting imported consignments for scanning at container scanning machine located at the inland container depot (ICD) and concentrated cargo scanning locations; granting codes of the location to the Customs Enforcement Team; coordination for scanning.

Besides that, customs departments of the provinces and cities have proposed many solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of scanning.

At the same time, proposing and studying to build software for supporting customs officials to look up the list of scanning; selection of containers subjected to scanning; unify on selection of containers for conducting scanning, thereby reducing cargo clearance time and cutting costs for businesses having containers subject to scanning.

It is proposed to select the subject of scanning, it needs to choose container selectively and the receipt and lookup of a list of containers must be updated on the system.

At the conference, Deputy Director of General Department of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh suggested advisory units have plans to remove difficulties and problems for local customs departments; propose support plans and recommendations.