HÀ NỘI – Four more provinces have adopted the National Single Window (NSW) for clearance of import-export goods at all their ports in compliance with a decision issued in 2016 by the Prime Minister to expand the mechanism to all ports in the country.

According to Vũ Văn Thành from the management and operation department of the National Single Window (NSW), which is operated by the customs department, since the launch of the programme in 2014, nine cities and provinces have adopted it.

They are HCM City, Hải Phòng, Đà Nẵng, Quảng Ninh, Quảng Ngãi, Khánh Hòa, Bình Định, Đồng Nai, and Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu, and they have collected more than 199,000 dossiers from 5,000 companies.

After creating the requisite infrastructure for expanding the programme, the customs department has held three training courses in Hải Phòng, Đà Nẵng and HCM City for enterprises and State management agencies on customs procedures for vessels at ports via the NSW platform.

As of June the department had worked with relevant ministries to introduce NSW at ports in four more provinces, Thừa Thiên – Huế, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, and Quảng Nam.

All shipping lines, carriers and forwarding companies will carry out the required procedures through the National Portal at https://vnsw.gov.vn.

To ensure the expansion and smooth adoption of NSW, the customs department has instructed its sub-departments to work closely with shipping companies and agents to help them adapt to the new changes.

Shipping firms and agents are also encouraged to take the initiative by signing up to the system and registering their electronic signatures.

The NSW and the ASW (ASEAN Single Window) together with the Government’s efforts to facilitate trade have helped significantly reduce the time required for clearance of goods, Minister of Finance Đinh Tiến Dũng told Hải Quan (Customs) newspaper last month.

He cited a World Bank report as saying that last year Việt Nam was able to reduce the time taken for customs procedures for exports by three hours and for imports by six hours.

Besides, the cost of customs clearance at border gates dropped to US$19 for a consignment.

It is estimated that with more than 11 million customs declarations last year, companies were able to save over $200 million and 16 million hours.

According to the ministry’s statistics, 47 administrative procedures related to 11 ministries and sectors have been connected with the NSW.—VNS