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Firms complain e-customs clearance takes more time
Ho Chi Minh City businesses say the Internet-based platform for customs clearance procedures has failed to save time, and has in fact doubled their workload.
The e-customs clearance service has been offered on a trial basis to trading businesses in HCMC since 2005. But starting June 8, the city’s customs department began providing online declaration forms for all types of imports and exports. Earlier, these were issued only for foreign-invested goods and materials imported for processing.
Despite the department’s efforts, importers, exporters, and logistics companies say online customs declarations just mean that companies take on the task of data input into the system on behalf of customs staff.
The director of a logistics firm, who wished to be unnamed, said though the service is called “e-customs clearance,” it continues to involve paperwork.
He said businesses that process customs declarations online still have to declare their goods on paper.
“When dealing with e-customs clearance, we have to assign two staff for the purpose. One makes the declarations on paper and goes to the customs department to hand it in. The other declares the necessary information online and calls the former once the process is completed so that customs staff can check the paper against the online data,” he said.
The Deputy Head of the Export-Import Department at a company in HCMC, who wanted to be identified only as H., said, “We were not able to send 20 customs declarations one day because of connection problems.”
She also said the customs department’s software sometimes failed to meet businesses’ additional declarations.
Nguyen Trong Hung, Deputy Head of the HCMC Customs Department, said as the city volunteered to offer e-customs clearance service on a trial basis, it had to take on a lot of pressure and a heavy workload.
“We don’t have regulations regarding the e-clearance, so companies still have to make a paper file for customs clearance,” he said.
Referring to software errors, he said it takes time to perfect the data transfer system and related facilities.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, a member of the reform division at the HCMC Customs Department, said 82.5 percent of enterprises processed e-customs clearance over the past month since the issue began of online declaration forms for all types of imports and exports.
He said most of the remaining companies using the usual method of customs clearance were non-trading units.
Tuan also said that in case companies meet technical problems while processing their customs declarations online, or have yet to know that the service applies to all types of goods, the customs bureaus will still accept declarations on paper.
These companies will also receive guidance and instructions in using the e-customs service, he added.
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