VietNamNet Bridge – While reforming administrative procedures has always been highlighted by state management agencies as their biggest achievement in recent years, businesses say they still cannot see the reform.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Quang, Chair of the Long An Entrepreneurs’ Association, said businesses still have to spend too much time on following customs procedures.

Quang said in general, the percentage of loss in transit is negotiated and agreed by the two parties – seller and buyer. However, the percentage is not accepted by customs agencies.

“Even though after the imports are carried to storehouses, the customs agency would still take sample for examination once more and we have to get the signatures of border gate customs agencies’ heads to get customs clearance,” she said.

Since businesses have to spend more time and more money on the complicated procedures, the production costs would be higher, thus making Vietnamese products less competitive.

Hong Thanh, a senior executive of the Viet Tien Garment Company, has complained that his company has to bear an unreasonable kind of tax, which makes the exports more expensive in the world market.

Viet Tien has to import special plastic bags to pack our export products, because the bag still cannot be made domestically. However, it has to pay the environment tax on the bag imports.

Thanh said it’s unreasonable to impose tax on the bag imports, because the bags would be re-exported later, not to be used domestically and discharged into the environment.

When commenting about e-customs, praised as the effective tool for the administrative procedure reform. However, Nguyen Hai Trieu from Gio Moi Company, said e-customs have just helped reduce the volume of works customs officers have to deal with.

“After making online customs declarations, businesses’ officers still have to come to give written documents directly to customs officers. Therefore, the workload for businesses remains unchanged,” he said.

What makes import-export companies worried stiff now is that the 275-day grace period in tax payment would be removed.

Pham Xuan Hung from the HCM City Embroidery and Knitting Association said the removal of the grade period mechanism would “bring disaster.”

“In order to be guaranteed by commercial banks, businesses would have to have collaterals, which is impossible for them in the current circumstances. This means that businesses would not be able to enjoy the grace any more,” Hung said.

“Since businesses cannot enjoy grace, they would rather do the outsourcing for foreign partners instead of trying to make and export products under the mode of FOB (free on board). This, finally, would harm the national economy, because the local production is not encouraged to develop,” he explained.

Nguyen Thu Suong from Gio Moi Import-Export Company said seafood exporters still have to pay tax for the refused exports.

“In many cases, the exports were refused because of the anti-biotic residues problem. Company would incur the loss of hundreds of millions of dong for every refused container. However, they still have to pay tax, 200-300 million dong per 100,000 dollars worth of products,” she said.

Hong Thanh, a senior executive of Viet Tien Corporation, said the complicated procedures for granting certificate of origin C/O have made the corporation’s Japanese partners discouraged, which may lead to the fact that they would give up doing business with Vietnam.

In principle, the contractor tax is imposed on foreign contractors. However, since it’s difficult to collect tax from foreign contractors, taxation bodies decide to collect tax from domestic import companies.

High logistics fees have also been burdening Vietnamese businesses. The shipping fee for a container from Shanghai or Thailand to Vietnam is just 100 dollar. Meanwhile, businesses have to pay 150 dollars to carry one container on the distance of 15 kilometers.

Thanh Mai