To accelerate customs clearance

To make continual promotion and replication of reforms and modernization of customs activities, Binh Duong Provincial Department of Customs has established a steering board of customs clearance time measurements against importing cargoes through a port in Binh Duong Province. The Department has coordinated with Ho Chi Minh City Branch of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCMC VCCI) to carry out simultaneous customs clearance time measurements at both sides of the enterprise and the customs office against 4 major importing categories of processed, manufactured-and-exported, produced-and-exported, and commercial cargoes.

Objective and robust approach

According to Binh Duong Provincial Department of Customs, over 10,000 custom declarations emerge daily. To ensure objective, accurate, and actual measurements, the measurements unit has chosen 4 typical clearance sites to sample at 60-70% of total emerged declarations. In fact, the collected samples by sub-departments have surpassed the planning. Particularly, the sampling by Customs Sub-department of cargo management outside the industrial parks is 105.86%, Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park Customs Sub-department 191.96%, Song Than Industrial Park Customs Sub-department 104.03%, and My Phuoc Industrial Park Customs Sub-department 100.72%.

Time measurement group is carrying out cargo clearance at My Phuoc Industrial Park Sub-department of Customs. Photo: D. Chi

The time measurements results show that the time measuring starts as the VNACCS/VCIS system receives the customs declarations to the time the customs agency decides on clearance and release the cargo. The fastest timing for green-coded declaration is 0 minutes and 9 minutes with taxes and slowest timing at 165 hours and 21 minutes (averagely 18 hours 31 minutes and 51 seconds). The fastest timing for yellow-coded declaration is 17 minutes and slowest timing at 455 hours and 2 minutes (averagely 114 hours 4 minutes and 7 seconds). The fastest timing for red-coded declaration is 5 hours and 50 minutes and slowest timing at 119 hours and 36 minutes (averagely 68 hours 0 minutes and 56 seconds).

As for processing time of customs officers, the red-coded processing takes 30 minutes at the fastest and 1 hours 45 minutes at the slowest, accounting for 1.21% of total time from registration to clearance and cargo releasing decision; the yellow-coded processing takes less than 1 % of total cargo clearance time.

As Binh Duong Province, particularly, has up to 83% of processing, manufacturing, and exporting businesses which mainly do their trading of materials servicing the production requiring frequent importation of cargoes that can be relatively fast in checking of cargo details. Regarding the green-coded processing with taxes, the average time for customs officers to process is accounted for less than 1% of total cargo clearance time. For such processing, the time depends on the tax payment document checking.

To accelerate the connection

Mr. Huynh Trinh Thanh, Deputy Head of the Steering Board of cargo clearance time measurements of Binh Duong Provincial Department of Customs, said that under Customs Law, the cargo clearance dossier is only valid for 15 days; however, in reality, few enterprises release or take out their cargoes immediately at the time of receiving the decision. This incurs dead time.

Besides, the connection of customs agencies and the banking system has not been thoroughly made. Currently, only 4 banks are connected while enterprises have much wider transactions with all the banks. In the event that an enterprise has paid tax at a bank not connected to the customs agency of its processing, incurring more dead time for obtaining the documents proving such payments. And, another obstacle lies with specialized treatment medicines, foods, and importing agricultural products required with standard certification by a competent authority. The pending time is totally beyond control of the customs agency.

Joining up the time measurements with local customs agencies at the venue of enterprises and cargo clearance sites, representative of HCMC Branch VCCI has grasped up the operations. Mr. Tran Ngoc Liem, Deputy Director of HCMC VCCI informed that the customs agencies, in recent years, have made great efforts in innovation and modernization to save time and costs as well as burdens of the enterprises. Binh Duong Provincial Department of Customs is the leading unit of modernization by VNACCS/VCISS and direct talk with enterprises. Despite the efforts, the infrastructure and connection with banks have not been synchronously established while the process may be prolonged due to professional decisions on the cargoes.

“Connection and interconnection should be rapidly established between the customs agency and the banks. Besides, competent authorities of decision on specialized cargoes should be connected to the customs agencies sot that the process will be accelerated. As for enterprises, they should reduce the dead time which affects the process,” Liem said.

Reported by Duy Chi – Translated by Vi Bao

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