In the administrative reform process, the organisation system of the country’s customs has gradually been adjusted to suit with the demand of each period. The Ministry of Finance issued Decision No 810/QD-BTC dated March 16, 2004 on reforming and modernising the customs service in the 2004-2006 period to meet the international standards on supply chain. This is a very realistic and necessary guideline. However, beside the positive points, there remain issues in the organisation system of the country’s customs presently.

Nowadays, the Vietnamese Customs has been boosting its customs management reform and modernisation plan to strongly change the traditional customs management method into the modern management according to the risk management technology, strongly change the customs pre-check method into the customs post-check principle, use brainpower and modern machines to replace the human physical strength, basically change the awareness of customs officials in fulfilling the task and building the customs force.

On the other hand, when the tariff and non-tariff barriers are gradually lifted according to the trade liberalisation progress, the state budget revenue from export and import goods will be gradually reduced along with the decrease of illegal trafficking and smuggling issues, mainly goods banned from imports and exports (weapons, explosives, drug, reactionary documents, depraved publications, forged banknotes, counterfeit goods and so forth) that are the super-profitable commodities harming the national security, health and interest of consumers.

Upon that basis, it is necessary to reform the organisation of the Vietnamese Customs in line with: simplified, professional, modern, uniform, effective, efficient based on improving the inspection and supervision capability of the customs according to international standards, ensuring the national security, commercial convenience and anti-terrorist attacks.

The important point now is dealing with limits of the current traditional organisation model to turn into a professional and modern inspection, supervision and anti-smuggling team according to the regulation of the Customs Law. This is the revolution in the organisation of the Vietnamese Customs. It is necessary to enhance the assignment and individualisation of responsibility of the customs, boost clarity and transparency of the customs, make the customs team more professional and modern.

For instance, each border gate and border line must be unified in each separate customs management model to deal with the issue of overlapping as presently (a provincial customs department is in charge of all customs sub-departments at roadway and seaway border gates; airports and ports, industrial parks and export-processing zones and others). Therefore, it is recommended that customs offices should be established (as many other countries did) in central areas where many export and import businesses are situated in; the separate management models at each type of border gate should be formed (airports, ports, roadway, industrial parks and export-processing zones, commercial zones, free duty shops...). Customs control teams alone should only be established in key areas where smuggling issues occur rather than in many places as currently.

In order to have a suitable customs institution, it is necessary to survey the practice and study professional criteria and standards based on the individualisation of responsibility, e.g. each customs official can make the customs procedure and how many customs declarations each customs official can check and supervise per day.

Or at a Customs Office of a Border Gate Customs Department, how much lots of export and import goods, or export and import means are cleared per day to classify the organisation models according to levels 1, 2, 3... and arrange the personnel suitably to deal with the situation where customs officials are sometimes redundant and free in offices but deficient and hard in others as currently.

Along with the above said issues, there is an effective measure to deal with the relationship between the customs task and issues on administrative border, the leadership mechanism between the Customs and localities, settle administrative violations, inspect and prosecute criminal cases on smuggling... to help the Customs have enough authorisation to deal with customs-related issues based on protecting the interest and sovereignty, national security, serving the foreign affairs task of the Party and State.

Thus, it is obvious that reforming the Vietnamese Customs must be undergone uniformly and absolutely with an overall measure based on scientific studies suitable with the positive change of the country and the world in the new period. At the same time, the Customs needs to study proposals for amending and supplementing the training and priority regime for customs officials to create conditions for them to get rid of individual calculations to focus on completing their tasks excellently.

Hai Quan Newspaper March 28th 2006