Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST)will propose solutions to the Government to renovate specialised inspectionactivities in order to create a favourable environment for the businesscommunity while ensuring control over the quality of goods and protectingconsumers.

The statement was made by Nguyen Hoang Linh, deputy director of the Directoratefor Standards, Metrology and Quality under the MoST, in a workshop onreviewing category 2 goods and import-export clearance regulations held in thenorthern province of Vinh Phuc on October 11.

The workshop is an open forum for direct dialogue between management agenciesand enterprises to propose solutions that will create a favourable businessenvironment for exporters and importers.

Specifically, these solutions include reducing the ratio of import goodssubject to specialised inspections at the clearance stage from 35 percent to 15percent and amending legal documents which overlap or are not compliant withthe Law on Product and Goods Quality; Law on Standards and TechnicalRegulations and Food Safety Law.

On August 9, 2017, the Government issued Resolution No. 75/NQ-CP, whichassigned the MoST to lead and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectorsin reviewing and removing at least 50 percent of the commodities on the list ofgroup-2 commodities subject to State inspection before customs clearance of 12ministries before June 2018.

Group 2 commodities are products and goods which are possibly unsafe and canaffect the health of consumers. However, ministries have said the list of goodsin group 2 is too long, and many items are not unsafe.

Also in the Resolution, the Government assigned the Ministry of Industry andTrade (MoIT), the Ministry of Transport (MoT), the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development (MARD), and the Ministry of Health (MoH) to review and reducespecialised inspection procedures with a view to reducing the ratio of importgoods subject to specialised inspections at the clearance stage to 15 percentfrom the current ratio of 30-35 percent.

Linh also said in the workshop that ministries have reviewed and planned toshorten the list of group 2 goods, for example, MoIT wanted to remove a groupof goods (textile products of all kinds), MoH proposed the removal of 26products, MARD proposed to exclude 16 products from the list (forestry crops,terrestrial livestock, non-food animals and animal products) and the Ministryof Construction planned to remove 36 products.

However, the quality inspections of products and goods are still inadequate,Linh added.

Last month, the Government Office issued a document conveying the direction ofDeputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue on enhancing the implementation ofreforming specialised inspections of group 2 goods.

Currently, the Prime Minister’s working group is concentrating on the field ofspecialised inspections of imported and exported goods.

Recently, the group has inspected the goods at Hai Phong port, at MoIT and MoHand planned to continue inspections at other ministries such as MARD, Ministryof Information and Communications and MoST on this issue.

However, as stated in the group’s latest report, specialised inspections stillcause difficulties and costs for enterprises, such as overlapping inspections.The list of goods subject to specialised inspection is also too long, and hasnot been matched with national standards; therefore the detection rate ofunsafe goods is only 0.03 percent.

In order to create favourable conditions for importers and exporters, andreduce the time for goods clearance, Linh suggested that in the future,ministries should conduct reviews to avoid implementing various managementmeasures on the same goods.

The pre-inspection steps should be shifted to post-inspection, and managementmeasures should be clarified in Vietnam’s regulations to help enterprises,inspection agencies and customs offices in the implementation process.

At the same time, authorities should review and amend legal documents oncertification, product and goods quality management in contravention of the Lawon Product and Goods Quality, Law on Standards and Technical Regulations andFood Safety Law, Linh added.

The event, organised by MoST, in accordance with the US Agency forInternational Development (USAID), will take place until October 13.-VNS/VNA