Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue made the above requirement while chairing a meeting at the Government Headquarters in Hanoi on July 31, discussing results in the operation of the National Steering Committee on the ASEAN Single Window (ASW), the National Single Window (NSW) and Trade Facilitation in the first half of this year.
Deputy PM Hue, who is also the committee’s chairman, praised effective coordination among the committee, its standing bodies and the relevant ministries, agencies and localities during the implementation of the NSW, ASW and specialised inspection with positive results.
To realise the tasks in the remainder of the year, the deputy PM assigned the Ministry of Finance to preside over and complete administrative procedures in accordance with the regulations on ASW, NSW and specialised inspection. The General Department of Vietnam Customs needs to strictly handle the recently discovered violations related to commercial and origin fraud, but must ensure the rights and obligations of enterprises.
He stressed the need to protect domestic production, but also to maximise trade facilitation. In the process of formulating documents related to specialised inspection, ministries and agencies should closely coordinate with Customs in order to bring the documents to life, ensuring the law enforcement but avoiding overlapping and obstructing operation of enterprises, he suggested.
He also assigned the Ministry of Finance to assume the prime responsibility in coordinating with relevant ministries and agencies to build an overall project on IT in implementing NSW under a centralised management model. The concerned authorities need to transform the scattered IT system into a focused one to connect with the NSW’s IT system, he added.
The senior government official also emphasised the need to strengthen national competitiveness and logistics development, urging the Ministry of Industry and Trade to preside over the overall logistics research and evaluation to help increase the logistics contribution to GDP and reduce costs for enterprises.
The Ministry of Transport should coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to develop a logistics development plan towards completing transport infrastructure connection, especially focusing on developing multi-modal transportation and inland waterway transport. The local People's Committees were urged to maximise geographical advantages to promote regional linkages and reduce time and costs for logistics businesses.
As of July 10, NSW has connected 174 administrative procedures by 13 ministries and sectors, along with over 2.3 million records of more than 30,900 businesses. Regarding the implementation of ASW and connection outside ASEAN, Vietnam has officially exchanged information on Certificate of Origin (C/O) with six countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and Cambodia. As of July 10, Vietnam received 87,355 C/Os from foreign countries and sent 153,872 C/Os to other nations.
