Responded by units: The Ministry of Finance – The General Department of Customs

Official letter: No 1282/TCHQ - PC, dated: 2019-03-07

Responded contents:

The Recommendation No. 5 Annex 1 relates to the Vietnam Dairy Association's recommendation for guiding the application of reduced inspection methods for imported goods shipments (Page 08 Appendix 1 with the Official Letter No. 2992 / PTM-VP dated December 27, 2018 by the VCCI). Regarding this content, the General Department of Customs has the following opinions:

The reduction inspection method shall apply to goods shipments and goods items falling into one of the three cases prescribed in Clause 1, Article 17 of the Decree No. 15/2018 / ND-CP of February 2, 2018 of the Government. However, the customs office has encountered some difficulties in determining shipments and goods in all three cases, specifically:

In order to determine the goods shipments, the goods are subject to reduced inspection as stipulated in Article 17 of the Decree:

a. In order to be identified as an enterprise that is entitled to a reduction method, the enterprise has been certified to meet the food safety requirements by the competent organization of the country which has signed the international agreement to recognize each other in the food safety inspection activities that Vietnam is a member of; have the inspection results of the competent authority of the exporting country for goods shipments and goods in accordance with the provisions of Vietnamese law.

For this content, the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs have issued anOfficial Letter No. 3322 / BTC-TCHQ - March 22, 2018; the Official Letter No. 4064 / TCHQ-GSQL dated July 11, 2018 to the Ministries (Industry and Trade, Health, Agriculture and Rural Development) request to provide database for customs authorities to apply the inspection method. Currently, the General Department of Customs has not yet received the opinions of ministries.

b. In order to be determined that an enterprise applies the reductionmethod, the enterprise has 03 (three) consecutive times within 12 months. It is required to import under the normal inspection method.

Since the Customs office has no basis to determine the shipment how the goods is 3 consecutive times in a row within 12 months of meeting the requirements of normal import, so for this content, the Ministry of Finance, mainly, the General Department of Customs issued an Official Letter No. 3322 / BTC-TCHQ dated March 22, 2018 and an Official Letter No. 4064 / TCHQ-GSQL dated July 11, 2018; the Official Letter No. 5449 / TCHQ-GSQL dated September 19, 2018 to the Ministries (Health, Industry and Trade, Agriculture and Rural Development) requesting the Ministries to refer to state inspection agencies for timely imported food for the General Department of Customs about thegoods products lists and (with HS codes) and a list of organizations / individuals (with enterprise codes) that meet the conditions for applying reductioninspection methods to agencies included in the flow management database.

Until now, the General Department of Customs has received a list of 07 units (out of 46 food safety inspection units designated by 03 ministries) to inform organizations / individuals that have products / goods apply reduction inspection method to customs authorities.

c. In order to apply the reducion inspection method, imported goods or goods of organizations / individuals are produced in establishments applying one of the quality management systems GMP, HACCP, ISO 22000, ws, BRC, FSSC 22000 or equivalent.

Since the customs office has insufficient basis to determine an authentic copy or a consular legalization copy of one of GMP, HACCP, ISO 22000, IFS, BRC, FSSC 22000 or equivalent for inclusion in the list reduced inspection, therefore, regarding this content, the General Department of Customs has issued an Official Letter No. 4064 / TCHQ-GSQL dated July 11, 2018 to the ministries requesting ministries to comment on valuable documents which are the equivalent of GMP, HACCP, ISO 22000, B7S, BRC, FSSC 22000 Certificates or which criteria to determine whether a voucher is valid for the self-stated on.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, there are currently no documents on this issue, so it is only possible to consider specifically the type of certificate presented together with the import registration file to evaluate and conclude.

According to the opinion of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, almost all food production establishments (if using the management system and the quality of food safety and quality) apply one or several advanced and widely used systems. in the world as standards: GMP. HACCP, ISO 22000 *, IFS, BRS, FSSC 22000. In case, the food production facility in the food exporting country into Vietnam has been granted another certificate of quality management system and other food safety since the conformity assessment organization has been accredited by that country itself, the Certificate will has equal value.

In addition, in the Decree No. 15/2018 / ND-CP, there is no specific guidance for checking what criteria in the dossier of the enterprise applies the reduction inspection method and also in the Decreein some cases, if the enterprise violates the examination, how will it be handled?

Therefore, from the above difficulties and problems, currently the General Department of Customs is proposing a meeting with ministries to agree on the problems.