Deputy PM urges to fight counterfeit goods, trade fraud on Lunar New Year
Deputy PM Minh has just signed and promulgated the plan 115/KH-BCD389 against the peak season of smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods before, during and after the Lunar New Year 2023.
The Deputy Prime Minister requested the Steering Committee 389 of ministries, sectors and local governments to actively grasp the situation by identifying how smugglers transport counterfeit commodities and commercial fraud into the country. Moreover, ministries and local administrations should identify smugglers, routes, areas that smugglers transport goods as well as commodities that contrabandists usually hawk, and how to deter them from illegally bringing commodities into Vietnam.
Responsibilities of central and local agencies and units in the management, inspection and control of areas must be verified. Along with that, each local administration must develop and implement plans to strengthen forces and means to patrol and strictly control border lines and border gates to prevent banned goods, fake goods and poor-quality goods from being smuggled into the country.
Mr. Hoang Khanh Duy, Deputy Head of the Management Board of Dong Dang Border Gate Economic Zone in the Northern Province of Lang Son, said that currently, on average, about 900 trucks carrying agricultural products and imported every day go through the border gates in Lang Son Province such as Huu Nghi, Tan Thanh, and Chi Ma. The average export volume of agricultural products is 400 vehicles a day, recently reaching over 1,000 vehicles a day. From August 2022 until now, all trucks carrying agricultural products to Lang Son have been cleared within the day.
According to Mr. Hoang Khanh Duy, at present, there are still businesses that have not carefully studied the new regulations in China's Orders 248 and 249, leading to confusion and late registration so they can't get customs clearance in time.
Furthermore, Mr. Hoang Khanh Duy said that many enterprises export agricultural products in raw, unpacked, unpackaged form while Chinese authorities require shipments to be packed, with packaging, print enough labels in English or Chinese with clear information about the growing area, purchasing facility, and package firms.
During the customs clearance process, the customs office in Lang Son also discovered that some individuals had fraudulent growing area codes and packing establishment codes when authorizing export procedures to China.
To avoid the congestion of agricultural products at the border gates in the Northern Province of Lang Son, the Management Board of the Dong Dang border gate economic zone requested businesses to monitor and regularly update wharf capacity and speed, clearance level to have a reasonable import and export plan. Managers advised not to bring goods to the Lang Son border gate especially fresh fruit at the end of the year, to avoid congestion, leading to economic losses.