Building a Customs force to meet the requirements of the new situation

Comrade Chu Quang Luan - Director of Nghe An Customs Department answered an interview with Nghe An Newspaper

PV:After 55 years of construction and growth, what are the outstanding achievements of Nghe An Customs?

Comrade Chu Quang Luan:After 55 years of construction and development, Nghe An Customs Department has continuously grown in all aspects. Since its establishment, although the force was small and operating in a large area, the officers and civil servants of Nghe An Customs always closely followed the assigned political tasks, organized and built forces and deployed professional activities in each area, contributing to healing the wounds of war, restoring production and developing the economy. During the period of fighting against the destructive war of the American imperialists in the North, officers and employees of Nghe An Customs Department did not hesitate to make sacrifices, relied on the people, "stick to ships, stick to goods, stick to border gates" to carry out procedures for imported shipments, safely protecting hundreds of thousands of tons of goods passing through border gates to promptly support the battlefield.

The industry has done a good job in fighting against smuggling, arresting and handling hundreds of cases of smuggling and illegal transportation of goods, gold, silver bars, weapons, explosives, flammable substances, and enemy psychological warfare documents, contributing its small part to the nation's cause of fighting against the US to save the country.

Entering the period of innovation, thanks to good customs supervision and management, implementing correct and sufficient collection and making full use of revenue sources, promoting the fight against smuggling and trade fraud, the import-export tax and other revenues of Nghe An Customs have increased significantly. In the period of 1986-1990, Nghe An Customs discovered and arrested 403 cases of cross-border smuggling, including 712 kg of plastic opium, 1,000 kg of MSG, 28,854 cartons of foreign cigarettes, 97 motorbikes, 126 taels of gold, 14.2 kg of silver and other goods worth hundreds of millions of dong.

During the 10 years of renovation from 1991 to 2000, the import-export turnover that Nghe An Customs processed increased from 1 million USD in 1991 to 100 million USD in 2000; import-export tax collection and other revenues reached over 200 billion VND; discovered, arrested and handled hundreds of smuggling and trade fraud cases with a confiscated value of 30 billion VND; established a special project to fight and arrest hundreds of cases and dozens of subjects trafficking and transporting narcotics, seized 201.5 kg of plastic opium, over 4 kg of heroin. In recognition of its achievements, Nghe An Customs was awarded the Third Class Labor Medal by the Party and State on the occasion of its 40th anniversary; many collectives and individuals received Medals and Certificates of Merit from the Prime Minister, central ministries, branches and Nghe An Provincial People's Committee.

In 2001, together with the whole industry, Nghe An Customs Department organized the implementation of the Customs Law passed by the National Assembly. To meet the new requirements and tasks, the unit has consolidated and rearranged the organization of the staff, forming new units such as: Vinh Customs Branch, Post-clearance Inspection Branch, Administrative Finance Department, Drug Control Team, Inspection Department, Information Technology Department. In addition, it focused on improving customs technical skills, promoting administrative procedure reform, creating favorable conditions for people and businesses in import-export activities. Thanks to that, the import-export turnover that Nghe An Customs processed increased rapidly, averaging over 200 million USD per year; Import-export tax collection in 2010 increased more than 3.5 times compared to 2001. The unit has deployed synchronously the fight against smuggling, trade fraud, and drug control at sea and on land, arresting and handling hundreds of smuggling cases, including cases with large values.

During the period from 2001 to 2010, the outstanding efforts of the officers and civil servants of Nghe An Customs Department have created favorable conditions for trade, investment and tourism in the area, contributing to the socio-economic development of the province. These achievements have been recognized by the State with the noble awards of the Second Class Labor Medal in 2001 and First Class in 2006, along with many other noble awards.

Nghe An Customs Department received Certificate of Merit
presented by the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

PV:To continuously develop to meet the requirements in the new situation, what solutions does Nghe An Customs Department have, comrade?

Comrade Chu Quang Luan:To meet the requirements of the new period, Nghe An Customs Department focuses on implementing the following tasks and solutions:

Firstly, focus on building a plan to reform, develop and modernize Nghe An Customs in the period of 2011-2015, with a vision to 2020. In which, focus on researching and building plans for border gates and non-border gates to meet the economic development requirements of the province. Build Nghe An Customs Department into a strong unit with influence in the North Central region.

Second, successfully deploy the pilot electronic customs procedures at all border gate and outside border gate customs branches as recently approved by the Prime Minister; move towards implementing electronic customs clearance for all types of import and export goods at levels 2 and 3.

Third, do a good job of political and ideological work for cadres and civil servants, and commit to seriously implementing the "Customer Service Manifesto".

Fourth, develop post-clearance inspection criteria for implementation, focusing on assessing business compliance to create a basis for transparency in the pre-clearance inspection stage, minimizing customs clearance time.

Fifth, strive to exceed the annual import-export tax collection target; do a good job of customs inspection and supervision to serve the policy of attracting and encouraging investment from domestic and foreign investors in the province, first of all, key projects such as: TH Milk, Cobeco Steel, unburnt bricks, Hua Na, Nam Mo, Khe Bo hydropower projects, Tan Ky and Tan Thang cement projects....

To perform this task well, first of all, Nghe An Customs Department will do a good job of propaganda, support, and information provision for customs declarants and taxpayers so that they can understand and comply with customs policies and procedures. On the other hand, constantly improve the professional qualifications of the staff and civil servants to quickly resolve work; invest in building modern technical facilities to meet the increasingly high requirements of customs operations.

PV:Thank you, comrade!

Hoang Vinh -perform