Customs Authorities to Reduce 12 Administrative Procedures

Customs procedures are always a haunting torment of many companies and businesses. Recently, the Prime Minister has ordered Vietnam Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Customs to review the administrative procedures and plan for reducing, amending of the unnecessary procedures that hindering and harassing businesses, to make investment in Vietnam more competitive and the legal environment in Vietnam more transparent.

Pursuant to the announcement No. 289/TB-VPCP dated 25th July 2014 on management and reform of administrative procedures in Customs decision of the Vietnam Ministry of Finance, 12 administrative procedures in the customs sector have been discarded, reduced down to 164 types.

Before that, the time consumed for the export procedures in Vietnam was 4 days, as twice as the average time consumed in the region and was one of the highest figures in the region. The time consumed for the import procedures is 4 days, compared to the average of 3 days of the region. The time for the preparation of documents for import-export is 12 days, 1 day longer than the average numbers.  Meanwhile, companies have to complete 13 documents for procedures, higher than Singapore, which requirs 6 types of documents and Malaysia with the respective number of 8.

In accordance with the annoucement, the Prime Minister demands the focus on renovating administration of Vietnam Tax, Customs procedures that target by the end of 2014, the time consumed by conducting these import-export, clearance of products procedures shall be cut in half; and to reduce the number of documents required; publicly announce the statistics of the customs operation; and finally, in 2015, reduce the number of hours consumed for the custom procedures of export-import products into Vietnam equal to the average figures of ASEAN-6 nation, which is 171 hours annually.