The project was considered important to cut time for customs clearance and reduce costs for businesses in line with international practices. — Photo tapchitaichinh.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the project to enhance efficiency of specialised checks in import and export in an effort to improve the business climate and enhance competitiveness.

The project was considered important to cut time for customs clearance and reduce costs for businesses in line with international practices, as the country was striving to hasten customs reforms, in which specialised checks remained a bottleneck.

This was a part of the effort to reduce customs clearance time to the legal level of ASEAN-6, or below 10 days for export products and below 12 days for import products in 2016, and below five days for both import and export products by 2020. Notably, under the project, 87 legal documents related to specialised checks in customs clearance under the management of 13 relevant ministries must be amended.

Of them, 49 circulars and decisions belonged to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 10 were of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, nine of the Ministry of Health and four of the Ministry of Construction.

The Prime Minister recommended that 85 out of the 87 documents be amended by the first quarter of next year while the deadline for the remaining two of the Ministry of Science and Technology was the end of 2016.

In order to achieve the goals, the project said that the legal framework about specialised checks must be completed together with renovations in checking methods to create favourable conditions for exports of Vietnamese products while setting standards for import products. — VNS