The General Department of Vietnam Customs has announced that the version 5 online customs clearance portal was down at 10 a.m. on January 25, as two servers, including an application computer and a data one, at the hardware error system monitoring center had stopped working, the local media reported.

A customs official is on duty

A representative of the department stated that the version 5 online portal was used to support the Vietnam Automated Customs Clearance System (VNACCS/VCIS), and it is neither a national one-door system nor a declaration registration receiving system.

The portal is aimed at supporting customs officials in confirming cargo handover reports in case the cargo is transported between sites under the supervision of the customs department. Further, the system assists customs officials to manually update the data on customs declarations.

Given the functions of the portal, the customs department confirmed that the paralysis of the version 5 online customs clearance portal had caused difficulties for customs officials tasked with monitoring cargo transportation.

In addition, the customs department noted that as the system encountered the trouble, customs officials had continued their tasks manually and would update the data when the system recovered.

Apart from all activities related to declaration registration and customs clearance at seaports and airport being conducted through the VNACCS/VCIS system, the customs department also confirmed that operations concerning connection and information exchange with departments and agencies were maintained via the national and ASEAN one-door systems during the incident.

After technical remedies were used to repair and replace the troubled servers, the system resumed operations at 9 p.m. on the same day.

SGT