Reforms of checks on imported products would create large room for growth: minister
Reforms of checks on imported products will help improve the business climate while reducing time and costs, which will give significant room for growth, Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung has said.
Officials of Mong Cai Customs Department, Quang Ninh province checks products. (Photo: baoquangninh.com.vn)
Hanoi (VNA) -🍷 Reformsof checks on imported products will helpimprove the business climate while reducing time and costs, which will give significant room for growth, Ministerand Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung has said.
Dung was speaking at the Government Office’smeeting on October 13 to discuss the draftproject about reforms of quality and food safety control on imported productsfollowing the proposal of the Ministry of Finance. Theminister said there arebarriers in procedures for importing products, which is time-consuming and pushing up costs,adding that the project aims totackle these problems and create a favourable business environment. The World Bank’s Doing Business2020 report announced in October last year revealed Vietnam's ranking for the ease of trading acrossborders dropped four spots from 100th to 104th out of 190 economies while theease of doing business fell one spot from 69th to 70th. Detailed measures must beraised to improve ease of trading across borders as well as the businessclimate and national competitiveness, especially in the context that theVietnamese Government set the targets of simplifying and cutting at least 20percent of business regulations and slashing at least 20 percent of compliancecosts, Dung said. “If we do well with reforms onchecks on imported products, it will create large room for growth," the minister said. Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai said reforms are being carried out but more drasticmeasures are needed to createbreakthroughs. Specialised checks on importsremain a burden on business, which increases time spent on customs clearance andundermines national competitiveness intrading across borders, she said. Mai said the project aims to cut time and costs and createfavourable conditions for business, protect the rights of businesses andconsumers and improve efficiency in the management of imported products. The project will focus on reforms which will make customs the focal point for qualityand food safety control on imported products. The finance ministry estimated that the reformed model will help reduce the number of declarations forquality and food safety control per year by about 54.4 percent and help save2.4 million working days, equivalent to 881 billion VND (38 million USD). A representative from theMinistry of Industry and Trade said the project needs to clarify the roles of other ministriesin carrying out specialised checks and post-clearance checks to have the mostappropriate reforms. Dung also asked ministries to hasten reformsto remove inconsistencies and overlaps which are burdening businesses.
During the past four years,3,893 out of 6,191 business conditions wereremoved or simplified, together with removing 6,776 out of 9,926 product linessubjected to specialised checks for customs clearance. This helped save morethan 18 million working days, equivalent to more than 6.3 trillion VND./.
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Officials of Mong Cai Customs Department, Quang Ninh province checks products. (Photo: baoquangninh.com.vn) 
