The World Customs Organization has identified the Customs-Business partnership as one of the 10 pillars that establish the important foundations of a modern customs agency. Following the direction of the General Department of Customs on implementing the above strategy, over the past 10 years, the Quang Ninh Customs Department has had many practical ways of working in the spirit of "Development Creation - Proactive Creativity - Close to Reality" for the common benefit.
Accompany and support businesses
Before 2014, most of the documents and paperwork related to import and export activities were still carried out manually by the Customs sector, causing many difficulties for businesses. For example, with B12 Petroleum Joint Stock Company (the main petroleum importer in the North), with a large amount of petroleum, the Company made an average of over 1,000 declarations each year, which meant that the Company's import and export staff had to regularly go to the Hon Gai Port Border Gate Branch to carry out related procedures.
In 2014, when the General Department of Customs piloted the VNACCS/VCIS system (Vietnam's automated cargo clearance system), the Quang Ninh Customs Department was the pioneer in deploying this system. At the time the system was put into operation, B12 Petroleum Joint Stock Company and other businesses in the import-export sector through Quang Ninh were very excited when the average customs clearance time for green lane goods of the system was no more than 3 seconds, the system was automatically implemented 24/7, 7 days/week. At the same time, all the professional stages in the customs clearance process and immediate feedback information to guide businesses in implementation. Thereby, it has saved time and customs clearance costs for businesses, especially minimizing businesses' contact with customs officers.
Not only is Quang Ninh Customs a pioneer in implementing major policies, it also proactively develops the Customs-Business partnership. In 2017, Quang Ninh Customs established an Information and Business Support Team (abbreviated as ISEC Team) directly led by the Director. This "rapid response" team operates under the motto "Most dedicated - Fastest - Most satisfied", committed to supporting businesses 24/7, responsible for synthesizing business opinions, directly supporting, removing difficulties, facilitating import-export activities and accompanying businesses in the process of implementing customs procedures.
Mr. Le Nguyen Duong, Deputy Director of SME Logistics Quang Ninh Joint Stock Company, shared: Many years ago, the interaction between customs and businesses was not really good. Businesses were confused when grasping new procedures, the time for customs clearance was long and the customs side did not fully grasp the production situation of the business. However, in the past 10 years, Quang Ninh Customs has made a breakthrough in supporting businesses by sending leaders and officers to the site to inspect production facilities, grasp the operating situation, and promptly detect shortcomings of businesses. Customs procedures have also been shortened right from the stage of preparing documents, clearing documents to the stage of post-inspection. Above all, Quang Ninh Customs has eliminated the hesitation of businesses so that the relationship between the two sides is truly oriented towards mutual benefits.
Quang Ninh Customs regularly organizes dialogue activities with businesses in many creative and friendly ways, attracting a large number of business communities to participate, such as: Conference "Customs Forum - Business Development Together", "Business Cafe"... These conferences are organized periodically every year according to each topic, each type of business, and each group of import and export goods. In the past 10 years, Quang Ninh Customs has organized 261 business dialogue conferences. Thereby, it has received and directly responded to nearly 700 opinions and concerns of businesses regarding customs procedures, tax policies, and investment incentives.
Mr. Hoang Kim Tinh, General Director of External Relations of Jinko Solar Vietnam Industrial Co., Ltd., said: We highly appreciate the efforts of Quang Ninh Customs in organizing dialogue conferences. Through well-organized conferences, businesses, especially FDI enterprises, can connect, share information and discuss import-export regulations and policies. This is extremely valuable and necessary when it has eliminated invisible barriers between the two sides in many commercial fields. When businesses understand and follow the import-export procedures correctly from the beginning, it will not only help reduce costs and time for businesses but also improve the competitiveness of businesses and the economy on a global scale.
Most prominent in the whole industry is that Quang Ninh Customs has successfully implemented the Program for assessing the competitiveness of the Sub-Department level (abbreviated as CDCI) to assess the competitiveness, the quality of management and operation at the grassroots level as well as the support and companionship activities of the Sub-Departments with enterprises. At the same time, the organization scores cadres and civil servants through the service quality assessment system of Customs civil servants. These two initiatives have created a vibrant competitive atmosphere among the affiliated sub-departments, in civil servants performing their tasks as well as Customs - Enterprise cooperation activities. From 2021 to present, nearly 5,000 enterprises have participated in the scoring of civil servants and there have been over 272,000 5-star rating votes (very satisfied level), accounting for 99.42% of the rating votes.
Increase benefits
Assessing the 10-year journey of persistently implementing support activities and accompanying businesses, Mr. Nguyen Van Nghien, Director of Quang Ninh Customs Department, said: When establishing a sustainable, substantive relationship with businesses, it also brings great value to the unit itself. The unit has fundamentally changed the perception of customs officers and civil servants from considering businesses as management objects to considering businesses as partners and collaborators. When businesses trust and stick together, the import-export revenue of Quang Ninh Customs has always been in the top 10 of the entire industry and even in the years when the Covid-19 pandemic was complicated, leading to negative import-export revenue of many other major Customs Departments in the country, Quang Ninh Customs still excellently completed and exceeded the targets assigned by the Ministry of Finance and the Provincial People's Committee. In particular, the biggest sweet fruit is that for 6 consecutive years (2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023), Quang Ninh Customs is the unit that has led the DDCI ranking (the provincial department and sector competitiveness index) for 6 times, a ranking result voted and honored by the business community itself. However, facing the trend of integration and digitalization in trade activities and customs management, Quang Ninh Customs determined that the development of Customs-Business partnerships and related parties by 2030 will have to be raised to a new level associated with comprehensive digital transformation.
Since the beginning of 2024, Quang Ninh Customs has focused on implementing key tasks and solutions to improve the business environment, enhance competitiveness, remove difficulties for production and business, and continue to research and propose initiatives to reform administrative procedures, especially those related to import and export activities, to shorten time and costs; deploy tasks to implement the digital transformation plan of the customs sector.
In the first 6 months of 2024, Quang Ninh Customs has successfully completed the assigned targets. Specifically: Carrying out customs procedures for over 81,000 declarations of all types; import-export turnover reaching 9.56 billion USD; attracting 1,390 enterprises to participate in import-export (an increase of 31% in the number of declarations, an increase of 26% in turnover, an increase of 23% in the number of enterprises compared to the same period last year). This result has brought the import-export revenue to over 9,500 billion VND (an increase of 22% over the same period, reaching over 76% of the target assigned by the Government, reaching over 73% of the target assigned by the province). This is also an important premise for Quang Ninh Customs to successfully complete its tasks for the whole year of 2024.
Currently, the unit is focusing on researching and proposing to the province to discuss with Nanning Customs (China) to facilitate customs clearance activities at the road border gate. At the same time, focusing on proposing and implementing the digital border gate model for pilot application at Mong Cai International Border Gate (Bac Luan Bridge II) according to the roadmap of the General Department and the province; proactively grasping information on production plans of units with large import-export revenues (gasoline, coal imports, raw materials for animal feed production) to promptly remove difficulties; renewing dialogue and cooperation activities to attract the business community to be ready to cooperate with the Customs agency; proactively analyzing and selecting topical issues that businesses are interested in to promptly support businesses.
Mr. Luu Manh Tuong, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Customs affirmed: According to the goal of developing the Customs - Business partnership of the Customs Development Strategy to 2030: "Building a partnership between customs agencies and businesses to form a reliable supply chain on the basis of research, development and implementation of a reliable partnership program with the participation of import-export enterprises and business partners in the supply chain". To realize this great goal, along with the effective implementation of the General Department's plans in supporting and developing businesses, Quang Ninh Customs has also set out very drastic solutions in the coming period. The efforts of Quang Ninh Customs will certainly make the Customs - Business partnership increasingly practical and effective, accompanying each other in economic development, enhancing the position of the unit in the whole industry.
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