Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue chairs a meeting on trade facilitation, held in Hanoi on February 6. He asked the relevant ministries and agencies to make efforts to improve trade facilitation – PHOTO: VGP

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, who also serves as chairman of the national steering committee for ASEAN single window, national single window and trade facilitation, chaired a meeting in Hanoi on Thursday on the agency’s tasks for this year, reported the Government news website.

The ministry reported the national single window system had a total of 188 administrative procedures, up 15 units compared with 2018. Also, 22 other procedures are set to be connected with the system soon. It handled over 2,800 million sets of applications from more than 35,000 firms.

The relevant ministries have adopted 37 out of 51 new procedures, accounting for 72.6% of the total compared with the target set earlier this year. All procedures are expected to be adopted within the first quarter.

Local authorities have completed a test run on customs declarations with the Eurasian Economic Union and have conducted negotiations with other countries on the exchange of quarantine and origin certificates.

Officials stated that previous improvements in administrative procedures have to a certain extent boosted the development of imports and exports and have enhanced the competitiveness of both the business community and the nation.

As a result, the total import and export earnings surged to US$500 billion last year from the 2018 tally of some US$400 billion.

Deputy Prime Minister Hue remarked that 2020 is the final year of the plan for rolling out the national single window, ASEAN single window, and trade facilitation.

Therefore, he asked the ministries and agencies to continue executing their tasks and various measures in line with the instructions of the prime minister and the steering committee.

The senior Cabinet leader urged them to speed up the reduction and simplification of specialized inspection procedures.

In an attempt to contain the outbreaks of the novel coronavirus and a highly fatal bird flu strain known as H5N1, he called on officials to analyze and assess the impact of these diseases on goods purchases so that they could suggest specific measures for specialized checks and customs clearance activities.

The move is meant to get the outbreaks under control and avoid the delay and build up of goods, thereby creating favorable conditions for firms to do business and safeguarding trade.

He told the Vietnam Logistics Business Association and its members to reduce warehousing costs by 10%-20% to support the owners of mall centers and supermarkets that seek to purchase farm produce. SGT

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