Customs to go online

Customs officers process electronic applications. — VNA/VNS Photo Pham Hau

HCM CITY — Nearly two-thirds of customs' application forms will be approved online by the end of this year, according to the HCM City's Customs Department.

To reach the goal, more than 1,600 businesses took part in a training course on electronic customs in the city yesterday.

Electronic customs will be used in the customs' sub-departments since the beginning of next month.

With electronic customs, all goods will be checked by the customs office and customers will be informed via the internet.

Under the new system, customers no longer need to bring their application forms to customs' sub-departments and wait for approval.

For customers, they only need a printed and sealed application form, then go to the customs sub-department and receive their goods.

"Seventy per cent of electronic customs will be done automatically," said Tran Ma Thong,deputy head of the municipal customs department.

Customs officials will check procedures and exchange information with colleagues through a computerised network.

With the new system, goods will be classified easily, and customs officials will know whether they need to have goods checked.

This new method will restrict contact between customs offices and customers to limit bribery as well as save expenses and time for companies.

The department has already upgraded its technical infrastructure, including servers, lease lines and software.

In case of a breakdown, the customs offices will use manual methods and add a database to the computer network later.

The HCM City's Tan Cang customs sub-department and Hai Phong Customs Department began using electronic customs on a pilot basis in October 2005. Four-hundred HCM City companies have joined the project.

The Tan Cang customs sub-department accepts an average of 150 electronic customs application forms each day.

Since early this year, the sub-department has approved 3,200 application forms with turnover of US$3.7 billion, and contributed VND6 trillion ($310 million) to the state budget. — VNS

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Tra tariff opposed by group

HA NOI — Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers yesterday expressed indignation over the US Department of Commerce's preliminary anti-dumping tariffs on Vietnamese tra frozen fillets.

In the sixth administrative review applied for certain Vietnamese tra frozen fillet exports, the department determined to tax duty rates in excess of 100 per cent, far exceeding any prior results in the case which has lasted more than eight years.

In previous department anti-dumping reviews, most Vietnamese exporters enjoyed the lowest tariff of 0.52 per cent.

The association also opposed the department's "unjustified" change in the surrogate country used to value raw material inputs, suddenly switching from Bangladesh to the Philippines, after consistently rejecting the Philippines in all prior administrative reviews.

The association said using Philippines data as the benchmark was not appropriate because Viet Nam was the biggest tra producer and exporter in the world with 1.2 million tonnes a year, while the Philippines' tra industry was still fledging and small with undeveloped farming and processing which would raise the price.

"This decision will negatively affect the livelihoods of millions of tra farmers in Viet Nam, as well as US consumers and workers related to tra import activities," the association said. It said the determination violated the letter and spirit of free-trade agreements between the US and Viet Nam, and asked the department to review the rates in the final determination which would be released in six months. — VNS

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VND16 bil. for automatic wastewater monitors

HCMC – The HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment has asked the city government for approval to spend some VND16 billion installing automatic industrial wastewater monitors in concentrated industrial zones.

Tran Nguyen Hien, head of the department’s Environment Management Office, said the facilities would help the department control the quality of industrial wastewater discharged from one high-tech park, three export processing zones and 10 industrial parks in the city.

Sensors will be placed at the outlet of the wastewater treatment facility of each park to record and transfer data about the discharged industrial wastewater, such as pH, DO, COD and TSS (total suspended solids) to a control center at the department 24 hours.

Based on the certified indexes, the environment authority will impose penalties on any industrial park that fails to meet the requirements for wastewater disposal.

The city’s industrial parks and export processing zones have nearly 1,000 operational enterprises that dispose of some 32,000 cubic meters of industrial wastewater a day.

The environment department is considering placing orders for automatic monitoring devices from the German firm WTW because these German devices are reportedly suitable for Vietnam’s existing telecommunications infrastructure.

Early this year, the environment department reported that in the next few years it would install automatic monitors at companies discharging much wastewater outside the industrial parks.

The budget for this wastewater monitoring scheme is VND100 billion.

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Big enterprises benefit from tax mechanism

The Big Enterprise Management Department has been set up to help giants treat and remove obstacles related to taxes and streamline tax payment procedures.

The new tax mechanism under the General Taxation Department benefits 405 out of 500,000 enterprises operational across the country. Of them 80 percent are corporations either owned by the State or with the State as a major shareholder, including groups and corporations in key industries such as oil and gas, electricity, mining, post and telecommunications and banking.

In the first step, the General Taxation Department is to issue digital identities for the target population to allow tax forms to be completed online.

Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan explained that it was a necessary step, as these enterprises play a very important role in socio-political and economic development, paying up to 70 percent of gross tax revenues.

Dam Thi Huyen, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, which now runs hundreds of branches and member companies across the country, lauded the move as “an important step” to help solve overlapping enterprise guidelines, management and inspection work.

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said it will submit to the Government a proposal on a number of special mechanisms and policies in favour of major enterprises, not limited to taxes and customs procedures.

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Big enterprises benefit from tax mechanism

The Big Enterprise Management Department has been set up to help giants
treat and remove obstacles related to taxes and streamline tax payment
procedures.

The new tax mechanism under the
General Taxation Department benefits 405 out of 500,000 enterprises
operational across the country. Of them 80 percent are corporations
either owned by the State or with the State as a major shareholder,
including groups and corporations in key industries such as oil and gas,
electricity, mining, post and telecommunications and banking.

In the first step, the General Taxation Department is to issue
digital identities for the target population to allow tax forms to be
completed online.

Deputy Minister of Finance Do
Hoang Anh Tuan explained that it was a necessary step, as these
enterprises play a very important role in socio-political and economic
development, paying up to 70 percent of gross tax revenues.

Dam Thi Huyen, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex, which now runs
hundreds of branches and member companies across the country, lauded the
move as “an important step” to help solve overlapping enterprise
guidelines, management and inspection work.

The
Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said it will submit to
the Government a proposal on a number of special mechanisms and policies
in favour of major enterprises, not limited to taxes and customs
procedures./.

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