Law enforcement agencies are coping with difficulties in implementing a number of new regulations and laws with effect this year due to the absence of guidance documents.

Agencies in HCMC and other localities are struggling with the implementation of the revised Law on Value-Added Tax (VAT) and the Customs Law as they have no execution guidelines in hand.

Nguyen Huu Toan, head of the import-export tax division at the HCMC Customs Department, said the VAT on fertilizer, agricultural equipment and machines, offshore fishing boats and animal feed was cut to zero from the previous rate of 5% from January 1 but local customs officers have found it difficult to apply the rule due to the lack of guidelines on how to identify agricultural equipment subject to the tariff exemption.

Customs agencies have trouble implementing Article 35 of the Customs Law. The article requires goods subject to animal health and food safety inspections to be kept at ports for check until all customs procedures are finished, or enterprises are allowed to transport their goods to designated warehouses but must guarantee their goods in good condition before customs clearance.

The problem is that there have not been specific guidelines for the customs agencies to decide storage places for such goods before inspections are carried out, said Vu Viet Tien, head of the management and inspection division at the HCMC Customs Deparment.

Legal documents guiding the execution of the revised laws on personal and corporate income taxes, special consumption tax, tax management, and resources have not been issued to date.

Local paper firms bemoan import procedures

* The absence of specific guidelines on scrap imports for regulations in the amended environmental protection law has put local paper firms on tenterhooks.

Saigon Paper Corporation (SGP) said many of its containers of material imports for paper production have been stuck at a port in HCMC for a couple of months due to complicated customs procedures.

Cao Tien Vi, general director of SGP, said the import shipments of his company were clarified by exporters as paper material but the local customs regarded them as scrap paper, thus delaying customs clearance procedures.

Vi said that local paper producers cannot compete with foreign firms due to high production costs and complicated procedures for pulp and paper material import.

SGP now has to import about 50% of the total material needs for production.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade said domestic paper enterprises faced tougher competition from paper products imported from Indonesia and Thailand last year. Meanwhile, pulp and paper material projects in the country have been carried out slowly.

According to Vu Ngoc Bao, vice chairman of the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association, Vietnam imported some 1.3 million tons of paper of different kinds last year.

Currently, local firms are coping with intense competition from newsprint and writing paper imports.