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| Deputy Director of the Anti-smuggling and Investigation Department Nguyen Van Hoan speak at the seminar |
This is the opinion of experts and businesses at the “Fighting smuggling and trade fraud: Coordination and sanctions” seminar by Business Forum Magazine on November 29.
Causing loss of legitimate businesses
Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Nguyen Quang Vinh said that Vietnam has become an attractive market for domestic and foreign products. However, the country faces complicated development of smuggling and trade fraud activities, affecting domestic production, causing a loss to the State budget and harm the interests of legitimate enterprises, and losing consumers’ trust.
The Deputy Director of the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department, under the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the number of anti-smuggling cases across the border has decreased by more than 20% compared with the same period in 2021. However, the smuggling of counterfeit goods in the country is still very complicated.
The Department has handled 14,700 violations with a total value of infringing goods of VND5,100 billion, contributed VND334 billion to the State budget, prosecuted 36 cases and transferred 112 cases.
According to the Deputy Director, enterprises have abused the Government’s preferential policies, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, for smuggling goods inland with many new tricks. For example, enterprises have imported goods via express delivery service or airway; imported raw materials for business production and consumption in the domestic market, causing loss of tax revenue.
Or the situation that the enterprises have imported goods for processing and replaced goods labels with fake origins and then exported the goods to a third country, affecting Vietnamese trade mark and reputation in the international market. This situation has made legitimate businesses suffer difficulties, even leading to bankruptcy.
Deputy Director Nguyen Van Hoan said that the Department prosecuted over 10 cases of cashew nuts in the country this year, and handled enterprises that have abused preferential policies to import goods and sell goods in the domestic market for tax evasion.
In addition, Department has handled those who took advantage of cooperation to issue fake C/O to businesses. About 500 enterprises are issuing fake C/O, affecting the trade mark of goods and legitimate businesses.
“This is a major concern, as per the regulations on handling fake goods and intellectual property infringement under Decree 99/2013/ND-CP for export goods, the infringing goods detected by the competent authority only must be re-exported. However, the regulations have made it difficult for the authority to handle violations, ” Hoan.
Need agreement and coordination
Therefore, to prevent smuggling and trade fraud, the government, ministries, sectors and localities have directed law enforcement units to perform promptly. Therefore, the situation has seen positive changes.
The Department’s representative said that the Department would coordinate with agencies under the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of National Defense, the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance (Ministry of Industry and Trade) to closely control the import and export activities and effectively the smuggling and intellectual property infringement so that people can consume quality products, especially in the last month of the year and the upcoming Lunar New Year.
According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Le, Deputy Director of the Technical Department under Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance, the fight against counterfeit and contraband goods is very difficult, so there need coordination and agreement by businesses, consumers, organizations and agencies.
Mr. Adrian Clarke, Corporate Affairs Manager of JTI Vietnam said counterfeit goods harm consumers and dominate market share from legitimate businesses. Therefore, the consequences of counterfeit goods on the health of consumers and the negative impact on the retail system of businesses and manufacturers should be disseminated.
Mr. Duong Duc Duy, Project Manager of Rang Dong Light Source and Vacuum Flask Joint Stock Company, the strict regulations on sanctions for violators should be issued. Moreover, he also suggested that it is necessary to develop a supervisory management mechanism to ensure the interests of businesses and issue sanctions for goods on the e-commerce floor.