Decision No. 1628/QD-TCHQ dated July 20, 2012 of the General Department of Customs on the procedure for the inspections of exported goods and imported goods using container scanners

DECISION

ON THE PROCEDURE FOR THE INSPECTIONS OF EXPORTED GOODS AND IMPORTED GOODS USING CONTAINER SCANNERS

THE DIRECTOR OF THE GENERAL DEPARTMENT OF CUSTOMS

Pursuant to the Law on Customs No. 29/2001/QH10 on June 29, 2001 and the Law No. 42/2005/QH11 on June 14, 2005 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Customs;

Pursuant to the Law on Tax administration No. 78/2006/QH10 on November 29, 2006;

Pursuant to the Government s Decree No. 154/2005/ND-CP on December 15, 2005 on detailing a number of articles of the Law on Customs applicable to customs procedures, customs inspections  and customs supervision

Pursuant to the Circular No. 194/2010/TT-BTC on December 06, 2010 of the Ministry of Finance guiding the customs procedures, customs inspections and customs supervisions; export tax, import tax and administration of tax on exported goods and imported goods;

Pursuant to the Circular No. 222/2009/TT-BTC on November 25, 2009 of the Ministry of Finance guiding the pilot electronic customs procedures

Pursuant to the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 02/2010/QD-TTg on January 15, 2010 defining the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of the General Department of Customs affiliated to the Ministry of Finance;

At the proposal the Director of the Customs Management Supervision Department,

DECIDES:

Article 1.Promulgating the Procedure for the inspections of exported goods and imported goods using container scanners

Article 2.This Decision takes effect as from its signing and supersedes the Decision No. 605/QD-TCHQ on April 04, 2011 on the procedures for field inspection and granting customs clearance to exported goods and imported goods at concentrated goods inspection places at Hai Phong port; the Decision No. 754/QD-TCHQ on April 28, 2011 on the procedures for the inspections of exported goods and imported goods using container scanners at concentrated inspection places in Cat Lai port, Ho Chi Minh city; the Decision No. 556/QD-TCHQ on March 25, 2011 temporarily promulgated together with the procedures for imported goods inspection and customs clearance at concentrated inspection places using container scanners at Lao Bao international border-gate – Quang Tri.

Article 3.The Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities; Heads of units affiliated to the General Department of Customs and relevant units are responsible for the implementation of this Decision

PROCEDURE

FOR THE INSPECTIONS OF EXPORTED GOODS AND IMPORTED GOODS USING CONTAINER SCANNERS

(Promulgated together with the Decision No. 1628/QD-TCHQ on July 20, 2012)

I. GENERAL PROVISIONS:

1. This Procedure is applicable to both electronic customs procedures and manual customs procedures and is a part of the Electronic customs procedures promulgated together with the Decision No.2396/QD-TCHQ on December 09, 2009 and the Customs procedures for commercial exported goods and imported goods promulgated together with the Decision No. 1171/TCHQ/QD on June 15, 2009 of the General Department of Customs.

2. Container scanners (including fixed scanners, portal scanners and portable scanners) equipped at concentrated goods inspection places and goods inspection places in port areas (hereinafter referred to as goods inspection places using scanners) and used for inspecting exported goods and imported goods transported in containers that have applied for customs declaration to a Sub-department of customs or multiple Sub-departments of customs affiliated to a Customs Department of a province or city. The Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities shall specify the scanning range of the goods inspection places equipped with container scanners.

3. Containers of exported goods and imported goods being scanned are containers that have applied for customs declaration at Sub-department of customs, and decided by the risk management system or by competent leaders to undergo field inspections using scanners.

4. Customs Departments of provinces and cities must establish and promptly update the criteria for scanner inspection on the risk management system under the current provisions on risk management and relevant guiding documents in order to ensure the scanning capacity and efficiency. If the amount of containers decided by risk management system to undergo scanner inspection is inconsiderable and lower than the scanner capacity, the random scanning rate shall be increased as prescribed in the Law on Customs in order to fully utilized the scanner capacity, enhance trade fraud and smuggling prevention.

5. For containers being scanned at the request of customs control forces or at the request of relevant Sub-department of customs, based on the law provisions, the Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities that have container scanners shall specify the procedures and authority to make decisions on the inspections; The scanning at goods inspection places using scanners must comply with such procedures.

6. When receiving and checking the customs declaration sheet (electronic or manual), if the quantity and identity numbers of containers are not specified thereon, the receiving officer shall guide the customs declarant to specify the quantity and identification numbers of containers on the customs declaration sheet, or the customs declaration annex, or the detailed list.

7. The Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities shall provide for the arrangement of staff to complete the customs clearance procedures and handle works related to the goods batch after being scanned, manually checked, and sampled (if any) are carried out at concentrated goods inspection places or at Sub-department of customs using container scanners or at Sub-department of customs where the customs declaration sheet is applied for, consistently with the actual conditions of the units.

8. The circulation of customs dossiers among the customs divisions within a Sub-department of customs shall be carried out by customs officials. For goods applied for the customs declaration sheet at a Sub-department of customs but scanned at the goods inspection places using scanners of other Sub-department of customs, the dossier circulation, the procedures for dossier circulation, the procedures for container circulation and the supervisions of containers of exported goods and imported goods transported from depots or ports to the goods inspection places using scanners and vice versa shall be provided for by the Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities that have container scanners consistently with relevant legal documents.

9. The scanning images and data must be archived as prescribed in the Decision No. 669/QD-TCHQ on March 31, 2010 of the General Department of Customs on the Regulation on the management and use of specialized equipment of customs. For the data related to administrative violations of customs, the archiving period must comply with law provisions on storing customs dossiers.  In case the system memory capacity is not enough, the data must be copied to external hard drives or to CDs, or DVDs.

10. Officers using container scanners (scanner operators) must be trained and must obtain the certificate from competent agencies. The quantity of scanner operators shall be specified by the Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities consistently with the scanning system design and the unit operation. The operation period of the scanner depends on the work shift of the Sub-department of customs specified by the Directors of the Sub-department of customs or by the same level consistently with the actual conditions of the units. At the end of the shift, the official doing that shift must keep the Log of the operation and shift under the form in the Annex of this Procedure.

11. If the scanner is not available, the Director of the Sub-department of customs where the customs declaration sheet is applied shall arrange manual inspection in order to avoid congestion and ensure customs clearance as prescribed.For containers of goods being transported to the goods inspection places using scanners but not being scanned, the Directors of Sub-department of customs or the equivalent at the goods inspection places using scanners shall arrange manual inspection for all transported containers.

II. PROCEDURES FOR GOODS INSPECTIONS AT GOODS INSPECTION PLACES USING SCANNERS

1. Receiving and updating the dossier on the system, guiding the transport of containers of goods to the scanning area:

1.1. The dossier recipient:

- Receiving customs dossiers and notifications from customs declarant of the complete quantity of containers of goods subject to inspections as requested;

- Scanning the customs declaration sheet (when the electronic customs dossier data transmission is not available) or updating the electronic declaration sheets and the detailed list of goods (if any) and entering the customs declaration sheet ID number, the container ID number and electronic scale data into the system;

- Notifying using walkie-talkie for the supervisor to guide the truck to the scanning location;

- Transferring the customs dossiers to the scanning image analysis division.

1.2. The supervisor:

- Guiding the truck carrying the containers of goods to the camera for photographing the container ID number, the license plate, the electronic scale (if any) and to the scanning area upon being notified by the dossier recipient.

- For immovable and portable container scanners (normal scanning mode), when the truck carrying the container has taken position for being scanned, the supervisor shall guide the driver to the waiting room and notify the scanner operator to proceed the scanning procedures. For portal and portable container scanners (quick scanning mode), the supervisor shall guide the driver to take the truck through the scanning port at proper speed consistently with the scanning procedures.

- After being scanned, the supervisor shall guide the truck carrying the scanned container to the regrouping area to wait for the conclusion from the customs agency

2. Scanning under the scanner operation procedures

The scanner operator: after being notified from the supervisor of the truck carrying the container having taken position for being scanned, the scanner operator shall proceed the scanning process under the scanner operation procedures. After finishing scanning, the scanner operator shall notify the supervisor to guide the truck carrying the scanned container to the regrouping area.

3. Analysis of scanning images:

Image analysis officer: based on the scanning images of each container (one image for each container), the information on the customs declaration sheet, the detailed list (if any) scanned into the scanner system, and other information at the scanning time in order to analyze and draw conclusions about the scanning image, then enter the conclusion into the system as follows:

3.1. If the scanning image is clear enough to carry out the analysis and no suspicion raises, then enter this conclusion:“The scanning image does not show suspicion, the goods is granted customs clearance under the customs declaration contents”. Write down the full name at the end of the conclusion.

3.2. If the scanning image shows suspicions, then mark the suspicious position on the image and enter this conclusion: “The scanning image show suspicions” or “Then scanning image is not able to identify the contents. Recommended to open the container for inspection” or “Recommended to open the container for sampling”. Write down the full name at the end of the conclusion, the report and the recommendation, then print and send to the team leader for decisions. In case the scanner system includes the computer for the team leader right in the scanner chamber, the scanning image shall be immediately sent to the computer of the team leader right after the conclusion of the image analysis officer is drawn.

3.3. The Team leader shall check and certified the conclusion. When the scanning image shows suspicions, the team leader shall check the scanning image, the conclusion and recommendation of the image analysis officer. If the team leader concur, then specify “The conclusion and recommendation are agreed”. Other opinion (if any) shall be written in the Leader’s notes section. Other suspicions on the scanning image shall be marked. Write down the full name at the end of the conclusion.

After the tasks in Point 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 (if any) of this section is done, the image analysis officer shall print the scanning images, then sign and append his officer’s seal to the images (one image of each container) in order to be enclosed with the dossier (kept by the customs). All scanning images of the containers are stored in the scanner system. Depending on the extent of information technology, the scanning images with the conclusion “The scanning image show suspicions” or “Then scanning image is not able to identify the contents. Recommended to open the container for inspection” or “Recommended to open the container for sampling” shall be sent to the manual goods inspection division to proceed.

4.Drawing conclusion about inspection using scanners:

4.1. For containers without suspicions:

a) For electronic customs procedures: the image analysis officer shall re-update the scanning conclusion from the scanner system on the form “Goods inspection results sheet” on the customs electronic data processing system, then print 02 (two) copies, 01 copy is kept by the customs declarant, 01 copy is stored with the dossier at the customs agency).  The decisions on “granting customs clearance” or “releasing goods” or “preserving goods” are made in accordance with the guidance on current electronic customs procedures.

b) For manual customs procedures: the image analysis officer shall record the scanning conclusions from the system into the Section 4.1.1. Custom inspection level and form order, and on 02 customs declaration sheets, then certify the completion of customs procedures on the customs declaration sheet as prescribed. Transfer the dossier to the tax and customs fee collection division and append the seal “Customs procedures completed” on the customs declaration sheet as prescribed in the Customs procedure for commercial exported goods and imported goods promulgated together with the Decision No. 1171/TCHQ/QD on June 15, 2009 of the General Department of Customs.

4.2. For suspicious containers:

a) For  electronic customs procedures, the image analysis officer shall:

- Print 01 (one) copy of the scanning image that show suspicions certified by the team leader from the scanner system and 02 (two) copies of the “Goods inspection result sheet” from the customs electronic data processing system;

- Transfer the above-mentioned documents together with the customs dossier to the manual goods inspection;

- Notify the customs declarant to take the goods to the manual goods inspection area to proceed.

b) For manual customs procedures: the image analysis officer shall record the scanning conclusions from the system into the Section 4.1.1. Custom inspection level and form order, and transfer the dossier together with the scanning images that show suspicions certified by the team leader to the manual inspection division. Notify the customs declarant to take the goods to the manual goods inspection area to proceed.

5. Manual inspection:

5.1. Inspection contents, methods and result recording:

a) For  electronic customs procedures: specified in Step 3, Section 2 in the  Electronic customs procedures promulgated together with the Decision No. 2396/QD-TCHQ on December 09, 2009.

b) For manual customs procedures: specified in Step 2 of the Customs procedures for commercial exported goods and imported goods promulgated together with the Decision No. 1171/TCHQ/QD on June 15, 2009 of the General Department of Customs.

5.2. Handling the inspection results:

a) For electronic customs procedures: if the inspection results are consistent with the customs declaration, then recording the inspection results into the form "Goods inspection result sheet”, and certifying the customs clearance on the printed electronic customs declaration sheet as prescribed. Then, updating the results on the system.

Making the violation record or certification record if the inspection results are not consistent or show violations, and transferring the dossier to functional divisions as prescribed in Point 7, Section 1 of this Procedure.

b) For manual customs procedures: if the inspection results are consistent with the customs declaration, then recording the inspection results into the system and into the Section 4.1.1. Custom inspection level and form order, and certifying the completion of customs procedures on the customs declaration sheet as prescribed. Transferring the dossier to the tax and customs fee collection division and append the seal “Customs procedures completed” on the customs declaration sheet as prescribed in the Customs procedure for commercial exported goods and imported goods promulgated together with the Decision No. 1171/TCHQ/QD on June 15, 2009 of the General Department of Customs.

Making the violation record or certification record if the inspection results are not consistent or show violations, and transferring the dossier to functional divisions as prescribed in Point 7, Section 1 of this Procedure.

III. ORGANIZING THE IMPLEMENTATION

1. The Directors of Customs Departments of provinces and cities that have container scanners and relevant units are responsible for the implementation of this Procedure.

2. Monthly, the Directors of the Customs Departments shall make and send reports to the General Department of Customs on the scanning operation and results under the Official Dispatch No. 4770/TCHQ- GSQL on September 30, 2011 of the General Department of Customs.

Any difficulties ultra vires during the course of implementation must be reported to the General Department of Customs (via Customs Management Supervision Department) for settlement.