The Ministry of Finance is soliciting feedback from affected parties on a draft scheme to consolidate specialized inspection responsibilities under the Customs authority for entering and transiting individuals and transportation, as well as imported, exported, and transited goods at border gates.
The core change lies in centralizing specialized inspections under the Customs authority across five sectors such as health quarantine, plant quarantine, animal quarantine, food safety inspection, and quality inspection.
If approved, this draft scheme will mark a major turning point in administrative reform and trade facilitation in Vietnam. Instead of the current fragmented oversight spread across multiple managing ministries such as the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the new model proposes a "single-window, single-dossier" process - an administrative system where individuals or businesses submit application data and documents just one time through a single digital or physical portal (the single window) packaged in a unified application file (the single dossier) to satisfy all government or regulatory agency requirements.
Under the proposal, customs declarants would submit a single set of documents electronically, while Customs officials would conduct document reviews, physical inspections and sampling concurrently with customs clearance procedures.
The mechanism would apply risk-based management, classifying goods into strict, normal and reduced inspection channels based on an enterprise’s compliance record. Under the reduced inspection channel, Customs officials would randomly select no more than 5 percent of eligible imported shipments within a one-year period for document review.
The approach would shift the management model from inspecting every shipment to conducting inspections based on risk.
For businesses, the main benefit would be reduced clearance times and costs. According to the Ministry of Finance, establishing a single focal point could cut customs clearance times by up to 50 percent. Businesses would also save on warehousing and staffing costs and face fewer administrative procedures by no longer having to work with multiple agencies separately.
For the State, this model optimizes resources and improves management efficiency. Centralizing data into the national single-window portal provides regulatory authorities with a comprehensive view of goods flows, eliminating overlap among different entities.
Alongside these advantages, the transition faces significant challenges. The largest hurdle is perfecting the legal framework. For the model to operate smoothly, at least 17 legal documents must be synchronously amended, including major laws such as the Customs Law, the Law on Veterinary Medicine, the Law on Food Safety, and the Law on Disease Prevention.
In addition, transferring personnel from various ministries to Customs departments requires reasonable organizational restructuring. A key issue is ensuring that customs officials, who traditionally handle tax professional operations and goods control, can fulfill highly specialized technical duties.
The shift toward a specialized inspection model centered on customs authorities represents a necessary revolution to align Vietnam with modern global management standards.
Despite facing significant challenges regarding legal frameworks and organizational integration, the resulting improvements in customs clearance times and economic efficiency will lay a crucial foundation for the future growth of import-export activities.
