Comprehensive reform of specialized inspection

The Committee also aimed in 2018 to implement all 130 administrative procedures in accordance with the plan set out in Decision No. 2185/QD-TTg dated November 14, 2016 of the Prime Minister, while continuing to review and add new procedures to the plan.

The target was to reduce the proportion of consignments subject to specialized inspection to below 15%, while still ensuring state management requirements and combating smuggling and trade fraud.

Specialized inspection activities were to be comprehensively reformed, with 50% of the lists of goods and products and specialized inspection procedures reviewed, reduced and simplified. In 2018, the situation in which goods were listed as subject to specialized inspection without corresponding regulations on technical standards, criteria or inspection methods was to be ended, except in special cases.

To achieve these goals, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue requested the Ministry of Finance to take the lead and coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications and relevant units in building and deploying an information technology system for the National Single Window and ASEAN Single Window, ensuring connectivity, system integrity, information and database security and safety, as well as developing a backup system for the National Single Window Portal.

The Deputy Prime Minister also requested the Ministry of Finance to ensure the readiness of the National Single Window Portal for the official implementation of the National Single Window in the aviation sector.

Reducing the proportion of goods subject to specialized inspection to below 15%

Regarding specialized inspection solutions for imports and exports, the Deputy Prime Minister requested ministries and sectors to fully perform their assigned tasks, reduce the proportion of goods subject to specialized inspection to below 15%, and review and remove 50% of the items on specialized inspection lists under their management.

Comprehensive reform of specialized inspection for imported and exported goods was to continue. Specifically, overlapping regulations were to be reviewed and removed; requirements for conformity certification for each imported shipment and each importer were to be abolished; the list and number of goods inspected at the customs-clearance stage were to be narrowed; and management was to shift strongly toward post-clearance inspection, source inspection and mutual recognition of specialized inspection results.

For imported and exported goods subject to specialized inspection, published lists must include HS codes consistent with Vietnam’s list of imports and exports and must be accompanied by applicable technical regulations, standards or criteria and inspection methods.

At the same time, socialization and public-private partnership models should be applied to specialized inspection of imports and exports. Inspection, testing, analysis and verification activities should increasingly be performed by enterprises and non-state organizations, while ministries and state agencies focus on issuing standards, technical regulations, criteria and inspection methods and concentrate resources on risk-based supervision and post-clearance inspection.