The General Department of Customs meets to review H1 activities in Hà Nội on July 8.— Photo haiquanonline

HÀ NỘI — The General Department of Customs announced it has sped up reforms in the context of COVID-19 during its H1 review meeting in Hà Nội on July 8.

The department said it has worked on the principle of fighting the pandemic and supporting and facilitating import and export of goods at a maximum level.

In the first six months of 2020, it has actively coordinated with relevant agencies to develop and complete draft documents to promote work relating to customs procedures, inspection and supervision of goods in the ASEAN Customs transit system, guiding the implementation of the temporary detention mechanism under the Istanbul Convention.

The department said it completed the decrees on business conditions for duty-free shops, warehouses, yards and places for customs clearance, gathering, customs inspection and supervision and a scheme on management of e-commerce activities approved by the Prime Minister.

At the same time, the department pushed up reforms and modernisation, focusing on important activities such as promoting dialogues between customs agencies and enterprises, organising the assessment of enterprises' satisfaction with customs clearance; and assessment of a national single window.

By June 30, the department put into operation two ships, one speedboat, one camera observation room, ten drug detectors, four luggage scanners and three surveillance camera systems to strengthen inspection work.

According to the department, the application of information technology and provision of online public services continues to be promoted as it is one of the most active agencies in the national single window system.

In rebuilding the overall IT system, the department can now provide nearly 90 per cent of services, as well as more than 97 per cent of bills, online through the national public service portal at levels 3 and 4.

In the field of anti-smuggling and trade fraud, the department has detected and dealt with 8,681 cases in the first six months of the year.

According to preliminary statistics of the department, the country's total import-export turnover of goods in the first six months reached US$240.12 billion, down slightly by 1.4 per cent from the same period last year.

The export value of goods reached $122.79 billion, up 0.2 per cent, while import value was $117.33 billion, down 2.9 per cent. Việt Nam's trade balance of goods in the first six months recorded a surplus of $5.46 billion. Last year, it was $1.72 billion. — VNS