Deputy PM urges simplification of specialised inspection procedures

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has highlighted the guideline of creating favourable conditions for businesses and reducing the proportion of specialised inspections from 30% currently to 15%, as recommended by the World Bank, by 2020 in order to alleviate the burden on enterprises, stressing the viewpoint that trade facilitation must go hand in hand with combating trade fraud.

Deputy PM Vuong Dinh Hue speaks at the meeting.

The deputy PM made the statement while chairing the second meeting of the National Steering Committee on the ASEAN and the National One-Stop-Shop (OSS) Customs Mechanism and Trade Facilitation in Hanoi, on July 11, which aimed to review the implementation outcomes in the first half of 2017 and set out solutions for the remainder of the year.

In order to remove any shortcomings in specialised inspections, he asked the relevant ministries, particularly the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Health Ministry, to promptly review and revise any overlapping regulations in specialised inspections, to apply mutual recognition of production procedures and product traceability on site in order to minimise inspections, and to strengthen source and post-inspections.

Politburo member Hue, who heads the Steering Committee, urged the ministries and sectors to finalise specific target and action programmes on the implementation of the National and ASEAN OSS mechanisms within August 2017, to complete the plan of embracing the entire 130 formalities into the National OSS mechanism this year and to supplement new procedures to the National OSS mechanism.

Concerning the ASEAN OSS mechanism, he also requested the official connection right after the protocol on this mechanism takes effect. As many as nine ASEAN countries have ratified the protocol so far, excluding the Philippines.

As reported by the General Department of Customs, in the first six months of 2017, the National OSS mechanism has handled more than 180,000 dossiers (up 107% annually) from over 12,680 businesses (up 70%).

(Source: NDO)