Minister Tran Tuan Anh chairs the conference on preventing trade remedies and origin fraud (Photo: Duc Duy/Vietnam +)
Hanoi (VNA) - In the context that Vietnam has deeply integrated into the regional and global economy, besides the opportunities of increasing exports, Vietnam has been facing frauds of origin of goods.
This not only causes losses for each business, but also affects the competitiveness of the economy in the long run. Therefore, strengthening management measures in order to prevent and strictly handle acts of tax evasion and frauds of origin for sustainable development of production, export and import is an urgent requirement.
This was requested by Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh at the conference on the implementation of the project "Strengthening the state management on the avoidance of trade defence measures and origin fraud" organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the morning of July 9 in Hanoi.
Increasing origin fraud to enjoy tax differences
According to Le Trieu Dung, Director of the Department of Trade Remedies, although functional units of the Ministry of Industry and Trade have made efforts in alerting tax evasion behaviors and tightening management, supervision and risk inspection, opportunities to avoid trade defenses and origin fraud tend to increase.
Issuing a warning, Mr. Dung said that the recent investment shift is a good signal, but it is necessary to strictly handle acts of non-production activities to benefit from tariffs and tax evasion.
According to Mr. Tran Huu Linh, General Director of the General Department of Market Management, over the past time, many goods with unknown place of origin, even containing toxins exceeding the permitted level, have been discovered.
"The method is very sophisticated, ordering products from abroad or importing components for assembly and labeling rather than production in the country," said Linh.
On the other hand, Mr. Nguyen Hong Duong, Deputy Director of the European and American Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that it is necessary to "screen" the groups of goods and commodities that have a sudden growth in export, in order to prevent fraud.
"In the near future, the European Department and the Department of Trade Remedies need to review the items with marked growth, thereby proposing the authorities to take part in the inspection," Mr. Duong added.
Strengthening state management
In fact, over the past time, discovered fraudulent acts of origin are not uncommon. For example, the case of potatoes imported from abroad but many small businesses labeled Dalat Potato to deceive customers.
From these emerging issues, according to Mr. Tran Huu Linh, it is necessary to apply information technology to the traceability of agricultural products and foodstuffs.
Besides, he also proposed that ministries and agencies complete policies and laws to strictly handle violations of law.
Agreeing with the above opinion, Mr. Tran Duy Dong, Director of the Domestic Market Department also recommended promoting communications, especially free trade agreements, in order to help protect the domestic market and develop trade activities. In the new project developed by this Department, there will be solutions to form a large distributor, and at the same time guide domestic enterprises to clearly understand the process of putting goods into that system, in order to limit trade fraud.
Regarding free trade agreements, Mr. Tran Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the Import and Export Department proposed, besides providing enterprises with support for exports, there should also be a solution to prevent trade fraud. He pointed to the application of information technology to share data and perfect the monitoring mechanism of place of origin.
Minister Tran Tuan Anh said that in the process of integration, issues of trade fraud and origin fraud, trade remedy avoidance will be directly related to the implementation of FTAs and sustainable trade development.
Therefore, in the coming time, in order to limit adverse impacts of attracting investment, the Minister requested units to proactively implement the Project on strengthening the state management on the avoidance of trade defence measures and origin fraud./.
