The relationship between Customs and businesses is increasingly improving, in fact.
On the morning of September 10, Customs Magazine coordinated with the Customs Modernization Reform Board (General Department of Customs) to organize the 2024 Annual Customs - Business Forum with the theme: "10 years of developing Customs - Business partnership".
Looking back on 10 years of development, in addition to completing documents on cooperation between Customs and enterprises, the Customs sector also implemented many solutions to develop this partnership.
The Customs Department has built partnerships with many business communities. Since 2014, the provincial/municipal Customs Departments have signed more than 25,000 cooperation agreements with businesses. The Hai Phong Customs Department alone has signed the largest number of cooperation agreements.
The provincial/municipal Customs Department proactively receives, responds, and resolves enterprises' problems in writing, by phone, and via the Department's website promptly. Regularly updates the settlement results on the unit's electronic information portal so that the business community knows and follows the implementation. In addition, the General Department of Customs has organized training courses to foster knowledge of international law for the business community such as: Customs declaration procedures, origin, intellectual property, etc.
Speaking at the Forum, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan - Deputy Secretary General, Head of the Legal Department of VCCI - assessed that the activities of the Customs apparatus at all levels have proactively provided information. VCCI has surveyed enterprises over many years on the level of information awareness of enterprises, and the survey results have received positive results.
Mr. Tuan said that during the operation, there were difficulties and problems, but the Customs units at all levels and enterprises discussed and resolved them together. "This has become a regular and practical practice. Not only at the national level, but in recent years, the coordination and exchange have also been raised to the regional level," said Mr. Tuan.
New compliance requirements for global supply chains
According to the General Department of Customs, Vietnam is a country with great openness, strongly integrated into the global supply chain (with 17 current FTAs), and has export strengths in many fields. However, with the world facing the risk of supply chain disruption due to war; climate change, and increasing natural disasters, the level of damage is getting greater; especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, import-export enterprises are under a lot of new compliance pressure.
Notably, tax compliance pressure is increasingly severe; Requirements for environmental protection and CO2 emission reduction are increasing to meet the requirements of the circular economy;
In addition, there are increasing requirements for ensuring food hygiene and safety, technical standards, ensuring human health, preventing counterfeit goods; Strengthening requirements for ensuring supply chain security, preventing terrorism, preventing theft, ensuring the integrity of goods transported in the supply chain; Increasing new challenges of e-commerce with the participation of many small and micro enterprises and individuals,...
Faced with that reality, Vietnamese enterprises that want to survive and develop need to expand their chain cooperation strategies, control risks from the source and ensure that every link has a policy of compliance with environmental, technical and social requirements.
Facing the challenges, the Customs authority said that the unit realized the need to change its management strategy to control widely, control from the source, identify supply chain risks with prediction and forecasting, and apply IT to both control the security and safety of the supply chain and facilitate trade.
In the coming time, Vietnam Customs will strengthen its partnership with enterprises, government agencies and customs authorities of trading partner countries and apply technology to manage integrated supply chains according to WCO's recommended standards on the SAFE Framework and the WCO's Voluntary Compliance Framework as well as international practices; Aiming to sign many mutual recognition agreements between countries on AEO and customs control measures thanks to good compliance management.
