HCM CITY — The HCM City customs department informed South Korean firms about new trade regulations and resolved problems faced by the latter in carrying out customs procedures at a dialogue held on Tuesday.

Lim Jae Hoon, Korea’s consul general in HCM City, said his country is the largest foreign investor in Việt Nam with a total register capital of over US$61 billion, with 5,600 enterprises investing in many sectors.

Around 1,400 have invested in HCM City, where conditions are more favourable compared to other parts of the country and there is active support from the customs department.

But many of the companies have limited knowledge of Việt Nam’s customs laws and tariff regulations and suffer from a language barrier, and so face difficulties, he said.

He hoped the dialogue would help Korean firms find solutions to the problems they face, he said.

Customs officials spoke about some new regulations that took effect on June 5.

For instance, Decree No. 59/2018 / NĐ-CP amends and supplements many regulations related to customs procedures, customs valuation including valuation methods, customs inspections and valuation, which replaced Decree No. 08/2015 / NĐ-CP.

Under the new regulations, if customs doubts the declared value of a consignment, it will notify the business and give it five working days to rectify the value, Nguyễn Thanh Long, the department’s deputy director, said.

If the declarant refuses to do so, customs would determine the value and impose tax accordingly, he said.

In the past it had to clear the goods and then investigate the case, he said.

The department took many questions from Korean firms about customs procedures and declaration, tariff policies, inspection procedures, certificates of origin, customs value calculation and others.

A representative of New - Hanam Company based in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park said her company executes many orders every day and has to make too many declarations, which consumes a lot of time and effort.

She sought permission to make weekly declarations instead.

Đinh Ngọc Thắng, the director of the department, said regulations do not permit this though many enterprises face the same problem, and so the department would make note and seek appropriate solutions from higher authorities.

Asked about certificates of origin (COs) by many businesses, he said if they do not feel confident about their COs they can seek customs assistance.

When some enterprises said they had faced difficulties in customs clearance, he asked them to provide complete information so that the relevant customs divisions could directly discuss them with the businesses and resolve them.

Held by the department in collaboration with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Việt Nam (KOCHAM), and the Korea Trade - Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the dialogue saw the participation of more than 150 Korean firms. — VNS