VietNamNet Bridge - Import/export companies are complaining about legal procedures requiring inspection of their products that cost them hundreds of millions or billions of dong.

Nguyen Hoai Nam, deputy secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Circular No 48, said that enterprises have to have one of every 4-6 seafood batches examined. 

Each of the batches has to be produced in 24 hours. A container comprises many different batches of goods.

“How can we make products in one day?” he said. “We have to collect materials – shrimp and fish - from many different suppliers.”

Nam said VASEP has sent a 43-page petition to state management agencies, asking to amend unreasonable regulations.

“However, agencies have been uncooperative, which is disappointing,” he said.

Trinh Tu Anh, director of Indo Trading Company, said she was tired of the Plant Protection Agency’s regulations. 

Indo imports bamboo-made sleeping mats from China and is required to show quarantine certificates from Chinese agencies. 

Meanwhile, this is an impossible mission, because the mats are manually made in Chinese production workshops. 

Regarding garment products, Anh said the company has 5-7 or even 10 samples examined daily, which consumes time and money.

“Is it really necessary to examine so regularly if we have never violated the regulations?” she said.

Anh complained that her company has to spend from VND700 million to VND1 billion to have product quality examined.

An executive from the Vietnam-Australia Refrigeration Group said that the company imported four consignments of goods a month and has to pay hundreds of millions of dong to have products tested for energy efficiency.

“I wonder if the result of one test could be used for the next 6-12 months,” he said.

Heavy burden 

Pham Thanh Binh, consultant for the USAID-funded Vietnam Governance for Inclusive Growth (GIG), confirmed that businesses have to spend a lot of money and time on examination procedures.

Binh cited a GIG survey which found that 70.6 percent of polled businesses said it took 7-15 days to obtain certificates of conformity. 

Under Circular 44 on steel and steel wire quality examination, the examination time can last 2-4 weeks.

Binh said the fees were too high, sometimes tens of millions of dong for consignments of goods. This was attributed to the amendments of legal documents. 

Binh said that tea, coffee, and milk imports/exporters have to obtain certificates on quality and food hygiene from two to three agencies or two to three different ministries.

With such procedures, the plan to cut customs procedures by 50 percent in 2015 has proven to be an impossible mission.

Pham Huyen