The Ban Phuc Nikel Mine Co., Ltd. exported 42 concentrates of Ni ,5 9.5% from November 2013 to November 2016 with the total export tax paid to the state budget of VND 929 billion.. These export shipments were exported at Hai Phong Port and opened at the Gia Thuy Customs Branch.

The company carried out export procedures, determined customs value, declared and completed tax refund procedures for the first 25 shipments. However, for shipments No 26, 67 and 29, according to customs declaration No 300448689611 dated 2 July 2015, customs declaration No 300469319900 on July 20, 2015 and customs declaration No 300554889410 on September 30, 2015, the Hanoi Customs Department issued an Official Letter No. 3997 / HQHN-TXNK on October 31, 2016 that not accept the official price for these export shipments with reasons that conditions accept time with official priceto unresponsive shipments on the basis of the documents provided by the Company (Please attach the Official Letter No. 3997 / HQHN-TXNK attached to this Official Letter).

In addition, for the remaining batches, the Gia Thuy Customs Department accepted the customs value declared by the Company for the shipments that the Company needed to pay additional taxes to request the Company to pay additional tax. This was completely contradictory, so the Company refused to submit more and asked the Customs Office to agree on the determination of the Customs value and calculate the amount of tax paid to the Company. The company had many explanatory documents and worked with Customs to propose to solve this problem. The company also sent a document to the General Department of Customs for guidance and resolution. Even the Company must rely on the intervention of the Vietnam Business Forum to request the General Department of Customs to resolve import tax refund issues of the Company. After more than 1 year of waiting for resolution, on March 20, 2018, the Company received an Official Letter No. 1356 / TXK-TGHQ notifying that it requested the Hanoi Customs Department to review and respond to the company's recommendations. . However, after that, the Company still did not receive any feedback. On May 7, 2018, the Company sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance requesting consideration to remove difficulties for enterprises, guiding the determination of customs valuation for concentrate ore shipments. On July 2, 2018, the company received a notice from the General Department of Customs instructed the Hanoi Customs Department to work directly with the company.

August 20, 2018, the Hanoi Customs Department issued a decision on post-clearance inspection at customs offices. The company worked together and fully explained with the post-clearance inspection team.

On October 30, 2018, the company received a notice of post-clearance inspection results at the Customs Office No. 3127 / TB-HQHN on October 9, 2018, issued by civil servants via Zalo. Accordingly, the post-customs clearance inspection team concluded that the customs value for export shipments of the Company was not accepted because "the company declared the taxable value of FOB Hai Phong but subtracted one amount determined as a shipping item that was not in accordance with clause 1 of Article 4 of the Circular 39/2015 / TT-BTC dated March 25, 2015 ”. The company did not agree with this conclusion and had a written complaint to request the Hanoi Customs Department to reconsider. At the same time the company sent a complaint to the Department of Customs on this notice.

On November 28, 2018, the Company received a Decision No. 1782 / QD-HQHN dated November 26, 2018 on the determination of tax on import and export goods. Accordingly, the amount of tax imposed on exported Nikel concentrate in 42 customs declarations of the Company was VND 933,349,689,081 (the difference with the declared tax amount was VND 15,974,241,920.

COMPLAINT CONTENT AND PROPOSALS OF THE COMPANY

1 / The company did not agree with the content of the tax assessment decision of the Hanoi City Department of Customs for not accepting the deduction of the shipping fee from the tax calculation value by:

Under the Contract for Standardization of Nikel Number JNMC08.2007.Ni.0426 dated June 24, 2013 signed between the Company and Golden Wealth International Trading Limited (the Purchaser) ("Subscription Agreement"). According to Clause 8 of the off – take agreement, the price paid was specified for nickel, copper, cobalt, and precious metal groups (other metals would not be paid). For each metal paid, the metal price was determined based on the average price in a month of the Cash payment price on the London Metal Trading Market for nickel, copper, and cobalt metals in the Phase that quotations were published in London Metal News ("LME Prices"). At the same time, Ban Phuc (the Seller) must pay the fine if there are mixed components As, MgO, Pb and Zn in the ore.

The way to calculate the price as specified in Clause 8 was according to international practice. According to the international practice and widely accepted metal trading practices in the world, LME prices were used as reference prices to calculate prices for concentrates and metals traded in respective transactions. The London Metal Trading Market ("LME") provided futures and options contracts for metals including aluminum, aluminum alloys, special North American aluminum alloys, cobalt, copper, lead, molybdenum, nickel, billet, tin and zinc. In order to trade LME listed metal trading contracts, one must trade through a certain member of the LME. The contract buyer will receive a certificate for an LME- warehouse approved to deliver the goods at a specific time if that person requested it (option contract).. LME also announced on each trading day the detailed numbers of goods in stock and the amount of goods delivered to each warehouse. To support this mechanism, LME approved and licensed a network of storage and utility facilities around the world. Logistics companies must meet strict standards before being approved by LME to allow metal delivery.

The seller and the purchaser in the off - take agreementagreed that the LME price when determined to be used as a presumed reference price includes shipping costs to LME warehouses approved and this was not appropriate for delivery. The Nickel ore purchased and sold between the seller and the purchaser under the off - take agreement. Therefore, the seller and the purchaser agreed to exclude transportation costs (specifically, transport costs from Hai Phong Port to Thien Tan Port was the purchaser's discharging port) when determining temporary prices and main prices mode of the metal to refer to FOB Incoterms 2000 delivery conditions, in accordance with Clause 6.1 of the off - take agreement(Clause 6.1 deliveried to the Purchaser under FOB Incoterms 2000 Hai Phong Port conditions). Therefore, Clause 6.7 and Clause 9.5 of the off - takeagreement stipulated that transportation costs would be deducted from the officialinvoice. Although the Coverage Agreement did not mention that it would deduct transportation costs into the official invoice, but due to the delivery conditions of FOB Incoterms 2000 and the reference price  wasthe LME Price at the Official Quote Period, so the transportation cost was also deducted from the official invoice similar to the deduction in the official invoice.

This was a legal agreement on pricing, consistent with the will of the parties when establishing the transaction and not contrary to Vietnamese law and international practice. The purchaser affirmed his will and his consensus on the purchase price in accordance with the above calculation and the seller agreed with the selling price according to the above calculation method. For each export shipment, the price agreement according to FOB Incoterms 2000 delivery conditions was shown in the table of calculation of the temporary invoice value and the table of official invoice values signed and constituted by the parties. An agreement that was legally binding on the parties, recognizing the price paid for the goods was LME Price during the Stage of Subtracting the Freight Charge to transport goods from Hai Phong Port to the destination port.

Clause 6.1 of the Off - Take Agreement, the Company would deliver goods to the Purchaser under FOB Incoterms 2000 conditions of Hai Phong Port; Clause 6.2 of the Offset Contract, the Purchaser would hire an ore transport vessel. General provisions of FOB Incoterms 2000 conditions, the seller was not obliged to transport the goods and the buyer was obliged to bear the cost of shipping goods from the port of delivery. Article A3 (a) of FOB Incoterms 2010 stipulated to clarify: "The seller had no obligation to the buyer to conclude a transport contract. However, if the buyer requested or if it was a commercial practice and the buyer did not have a timely reverse instruction, the seller may sign a normal transport contract with the costs and risks of the person.”In essence, the Purchaser authorized the Charterer to hire the ship but they would reimburse the cost thatwas still completely in accordance with the FOB Incoterms 2000 Conditions due to the final cost of transport by the buyer. In fact, the purchaser authorized the seller to hire a ship to transport, for all costs of hiring, the purchaser would reimburse the seller. This content was specified by the parties in writing under the Authorization Contract dated November 22, 2016.

The second revised Amendment Contract was revised and re-presented on January 21, 2016 and transferred on January 28, 2016, signed on July 14, 2017 and approved and confirmed on June 28, 2013 (i) the freight would be deducted from the provisionalinvoice and the official invoice, (ii) The value of the temporary billing sheet including the total value of FOB Incoterms 2000 and sea freight, (iii) the price paid for nickel ore at the provisional invoice was the temporary price calculated under FOB Incoterms 2000 condition, the price paid for nickel ore at the official invoice was the official price under FOB Incoterms condition 2000.

On the other hand, according to Article 4 of the Circular 39/2015 / TT- BTC on customs value, "Principle: Customs value was the selling price of goods calculated to border for export excluded international insurance premium ( I) and international transport fee (F) ”

So it was reasonable for the Company to charge transport fees out of the taxable value. The glass company requested the Hanoi Customs Department to consider this proposal of the Company.

2 / The company requested the Hanoi Customs Department to specify the basis for determining the taxable price and customs value for the export goods of the company in the tax assessment decision.

3 / The Ban Phuc Nikel Mining Co Ltd always complied with the customs procedures and declares the tax finalization under the guidance of the customs authorities. The deduction of international shipping fees from the tax calculation was applied synchronously on all 42 export shipments of the company and be accepted and made by the Gia Thuy Customs Branch and City Customs Department. tax refund procedures for 25 export shipments of the Company. The company was awarded a certificate of merit by the Hanoi Customs Department for its good performance in customs procedures and export tax payment for the first 6 months of 2014 and 2015. So at current,  theHanoi Customs Department did not accept customs value for export shipments of the Company although the Company provided sufficient documents and actual transaction documents to prove its legitimacy and suitabilityto International practice of trading wasnonsense. The company would like to proposethe General Department of Customs to review the Company's records and provide guidance on methods of determining customs valuation of Ni-ore concentrate products of this particular nature.

4 / Currently the company was in financial difficulties, production suspended since September 2016 so the company had no revenue. The company had to spend a lot of financial and manpower costs to work with the Customs as well as related agencies during the past 2 years. Investors who lost faith, so they extended the review period to continue investing in the project. Therefore, it was regrettable that, at current, the Company did not have enough financial capacity to pay the difference tax set by the Hanoi Customs Department.

The company was preparing to sign an agreement with a foreign investor to fund significant funding for an advanced exploration drilling program to boost Son La's economy. This investment was in danger of being withdrawn if a reasonable tariff was not obtained. The company neededa support of the Government and relevant agencies to resolve complaints as mentioned above and we were committed to pay additional taxes (if any) after the above complaints were resolved satisfactory.