On November 19 in Hanoi, Vietnam Customs organized the Vietnam - Laos Customs Directors General Conference. Director General Nguyen Van Tho and Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay co-chaired the Conference.
Cooperation brings many results
Speaking at the conference, Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Tho affirmed the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Laos.
In recent years, in order to foster cooperative relations, the Customs agencies of the two countries have also sent many working delegations to visit and exchange experiences in customs management.
The results of the visits and working sessions show that the cooperation between Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs is built on trust in cooperation, support, and mutual assistance for mutual development.
The customs authorities of the two countries also pay special attention to building, maintaining, preserving and developing the cooperative relationship between the two customs agencies and making the cooperative relationship increasingly substantive and practical, facilitating economic, trade, investment and travel exchanges between the people of the two countries.
The Director General of Vietnam Customs also emphasized: “Vietnam Customs always respects, preserves and cares about further developing this special relationship. Therefore, this Conference is an opportunity for the two Customs agencies to look back on the cooperation journey and discuss action plans for 2025.”
Sharing with pride, Director General of Lao Customs Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay said that in recent times, Lao Customs has achieved many positive results in all aspects of work.
Lao Customs has deployed the Electronic Customs Declaration System with 20 modules and completed the connection with the information technology systems of ministries, branches and enterprises. Lao Customs always prioritizes human resource development to improve the performance in state management of customs.
Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay said that the exchange, sharing and support in professional activities of Vietnam Customs in recent times have brought many useful results for Lao Customs in the process of development.
6 coordination contents in 2025
At the conference, the leaders of the two countries' Customs Departments agreed that the cooperation and mutual support activities between the two sides over the past many years have basically met the requirements of improving the effectiveness of state management of customs in the two countries.
The friendly cooperation has ensured the implementation of international commitments to which both sides are members as well as contributed to enhancing mutual understanding and tightening the good cooperative relationship between the Customs agencies of the two countries.
In order to further strengthen and develop the cooperative and mutual support relationship towards the goal of facilitating and ensuring security for Vietnam - Laos trade, on behalf of Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs, Director General Nguyen Van Tho and Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay agreed to approve the cooperation plan in 2025.
Accordingly, in 2025, the two agencies will implement 6 coordination contents. Specifically, the two sides will hold talks and exchange experiences on anti-smuggling investigations within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on anti-smuggling investigations between the Vietnamese and Lao Ministries of Finance.
Vietnam Customs will send officers to train and improve the capacity of Lao Customs officers related to the collection, analysis and processing of information from intelligence sources. At the same time, it will send officers to train and improve the capacity of Lao Customs officials in the work of controlling, investigating and handling arrests, criminal and drug cases.
The two sides will also exchange experiences on methods of determining value, origin and classification of import and export goods; the two sides will exchange experiences on post-clearance inspection; and organize a Conference of Directors General of Laos - Vietnam Customs to evaluate the results of implementing the proposed plan.
Although the world and regional situation in recent years has been volatile, with many difficulties and challenges, trade between the two countries has still recorded high growth.
Specifically, in 2022 and 2023, two-way trade turnover between the two countries will reach over 1.6 billion USD, an increase of nearly 20% compared to 2021. In 2024, two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and Laos in the first 9 months of the year will reach nearly 1.5 billion USD, an increase of 16.7% over the same period in 2023.
That growth was partly due to the contribution of the two Customs agencies in implementing trade facilitation measures.
Tien Dung
Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/vun-dap-quan-he-hop-tac-hai-quan-viet-nam-lao-2343971.html
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