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Vietnam: More enterprises have to pay informal customs fees
HANOI – The proportion of enterprises having to pay informal fees during the customs clearance process has risen to 31% in 2016 from 28% in 2015, according to a survey on 1,000 enterprises conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
Meanwhile, about 31% of enterprises said they did not know of such informal fees and 38% of enterprises said they did not pay informal fees.
Among enterprises not paying informal fees, 44% said there was no discrimination against them, 17% said they were discriminated and 39% said they had no idea.
At a conference announcing the survey’s results on April 27 in Hanoi, director of the Legal Department of VCCI Dau Anh Tuan said enterprises are still afraid of customs clearance procedures as customs officers may take overloading as an excuse to delay processing their documents. Therefore, they often give extra money to customs officers to ensure promptness.
General Secretary of the Business Association of Hai An District, Hai Phong City Dang The Luong said that although local customs units have applied electronic services, they could not meet the time due to overloading. “Enterprises need to pay informal fees if they want their cargos to be processed in advance,” he added.
According to Tuan, informal costs remain high because enterprises have to work directly with customs officers. Therefore, he suggested applying one-door and online customs services to solve the problems.
Many other inadequacies were pointed out in the survey. Specifically, 93% of enterprises said there are too many customs regulations, making it difficult for them to comply. More than 89% said many of the regulations are impractical and 82% said the coordination between agencies is not good.
Source: https://www.talkvietnam.com/2017/05/more-enterprises-have-to-pay-informal-customs-fees/