Spontaneous warehousing operation at Khanh Binh Border Gate requested to rectify

This situation has led to the fact that the customs authorities cannot inspect and supervise to detect smuggled shipments and inaccurate customs declarations for imported shipments. As for export shipments, customs authorities are not allowed to supervise and check the loading and unloading of goods, leading to the risk that customs authorities cannot manage whether the goods are the same as the customs declaration.

Especially for export agricultural products, which are prioritized in customs declarations, enterprises can easily take advantage of this to overstate the quantity, weight, and type to refund the value-added tax (VAT).

The General Department of Vietnam Customs said that in the past years, many enterprises had made false declarations to refund thousands of billion of Vietnamese dong at road border gates across the country. "Similar incidents happened at Khanh Binh Border Gate, causing many exporting enterprises and customs officers to be prosecuted for criminal responsibility," the General Department of Vietnam Customs informed. 

To ensure customs supervision following the provisions of the Customs Law, the General Department of Vietnam Customs requested the Customs Department of An Giang Province to strengthen the management and supervision at border gates in the province, including Khanh Binh Border Gate.

According to regulations, export goods loaded onto foreign means of transport must be subject to customs supervision. Currently, at Khanh Binh Border Gate, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has only recognized two places for gathering, inspection, and supervision of imported and exported goods at the border gate area of two warehousing companies, namely Duong Lan Company Limited and Hai Thinh Phat Trading Company Limited. For goods transported through the road border gate area, inspection and supervision will be carried out at these two places. Regarding the situation at the Khanh Binh Border Gate area, some companies spontaneously provide warehousing and yard services to serve the cross-border trade and exchange of goods, but they let the Cambodian vehicles enter their places to load and unload goods by themselves, the General Department of Vietnam Customs said.

Because these spontaneous locations are not recognized by the General Department of Vietnam Customs as being eligible for customs inspection and supervision, customs supervision and inspection face many difficulties, and enterprises are easy to take advantage of this situation to smuggle and illegally transport goods across borders. In the dispatch sent to the Customs Department of An Giang Province, the General Department of Vietnam Customs directed that, for Khanh Binh Border Gate, the gathering of goods and customs procedures for exported and imported goods at the road border gate and river border areas must be carried out in places recognized by the General Department of Vietnam Customs. Loading and unloading of exported and imported goods onto and off foreign vehicles at road border gates and river border areas must be carried out in places of gathering, inspection, and supervision of exported and imported goods recognized by the General Department of Vietnam Customs and not allowed at spontaneous gathering places of individuals and businesses in the road border gate area and river border area.