Customs officials check serial numbers of imported tractors at Huu Nghi Border Gate in the northern province of Lang Son. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - As the flow of goods intensifies in anticipationof increased demand during the Christmas and New Year season, there has alsobeen an uptick in smuggling, authorities say.
According to the Market Surveillance Agency under the Ministry of Industry andCommerce, the most popular smuggled consumer goods like clothing,footwear, food items, minerals like titanium or iron, and even illegal itemssuch as wild animals or firecrackers.
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Prime targets for smuggling are goods whose prices in Vietnam differ greatlyfrom the prices in other countries, heavily-taxed goods or restricted quotagoods like liquor, tobacco, cosmetics and western medicine.
The smuggling of foreign liquor, tobacco and refined sugar in particular hasseen a considerable rise recently in the border areas of the central andsouthwestern regions.
Meanwhile, the smuggling of live animals still occurs on a regular basis,mostly in northern provinces that border China, like Quang Ninh, Lang Son andCao Bang.
Illegal transporting of goods via railway is also rampant, according to theagency.
A lot of counterfeit, low-quality products or products that violateintellectual property rights – mostly clothes, electronic devices, and homeappliances – are being illegally brought into Vietnam from other countries.
According to the authorities, smugglers and their agents buy cheap products ofquestionable origin and quality that imitate well-known branded products, hirelots of people and use simple machines to apply labels before selling them intothe mass market.
Quite often, the fake products are sold together with the real ones, makingdetection difficult.
In the domestic market, the trading of illegal goods, smuggled products orcounterfeit products take place most in places of consistent high demand, likethe economic centres of Hanoi, HCM City, Dong Nai, and Binh Duong.
Violations on pricing as well as trading in expired products also increaseduring the year-end holiday season.
Those involved in the trade have devised ever more ingenious ways to evade thecapture of market watch authorities, the agency said.
The smugglers constantly switch locations and transport illegal goods back andforth between ports. The more relaxed regulations on bonded warehouses –temporary non-tariff storage for goods waiting to be exported to a thirdcountry – have also been increasingly taken advantage of to move goods intoChina: the smugglers would not make customs declarations as usually required ofthese items, or they just don’t re-export these items but slip them outside fordomestic market consumption, the Vietnam News Agency reports.
Illegal trade in threatened wild animals or their products (as listed under CITES,the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna andFlora), like ivory carefully hidden inside shipments declared as timber fromAfrican countries, is also becoming more commonplace, the report cites customsauthorities as saying.
According to the National Steering Committee 389 – the central authority onfighting smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods, in the last 10months, 181,000 violation cases have been discovered and handled, a 10 percentjump compared to the same period last year. Fines of 19 trillion VND (841,000USD) have been issued and 2,000 offenders have been punished.
Truong Van Ba, deputy chief of staff of National Steering Committee 289, saidthat smuggling and illegal trade “caused huge losses to government revenues,reaching trillions of dong a year."
The number of cases uncovered, despite being high already, “has not yetreflected actual reality,” Ba said.
“The reasons for this persistent situation are many, including lack of properregulations, lack of technical standards, lack of a centralised agency withultimate accountability despite numerous management authorities, and lack of coordinationbetween and among localities and sectors.”
Pham Quoc Hung, deputy head of HCM City Customs, offered a different take,saying that current fines are no deterrent to repeated offences. The offenderswould rather pay the fines, or even go to jail for a short period, and thenjust continue to earn the tempting big profits.
“There are ‘quarter companies’ which are established and exists for just a fewmonths, and then disappear. Their sole purpose is to facilitate smuggling,” hetold the Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper.-VNA
VNA
