The Ministry of Finance has plans to cut numerous fees as required by the Government to help enterprises – especially those in the agriculture and food sectors – ride out difficulties.

The ministry has asked all localities, ministries and agencies to give their feedback on a draft circular amending Circular No. 277/2016/TT-BTC dated November 14, 2016 on fees. The ministry will send the feedback on the draft to the Government in October.

The ministry proposed reducing fees for assessment and certification of information about drugs and cosmetics to VND1.6 million from the current VND1.8 million a dossier, and import license assessment for traditional herbal ingredients from VND200,000 to VND150,000 an item.

In a draft circular amending Circular No. 225/2016/TT-BTC dated November 11, 2016, the ministry suggested decreasing the fee for appraisement of certificates for biological and genetic modification safety of food and animal feed from VND120 million to VND105 million.

In addition, the ministry proposed removing fees for certificates of quarantine of animals and animal products, and fisheries which are imported, transited, temporarily imported for export and moved to another checkpoint in Circular No. 285/2016/TT-BTC; reducing the fee for certificates for export food according to requirements of importers, and the fee for confirmation of food safety knowledge in the agro-forestry-fishery sector in Circular No. 286/2016/TT-BTC. The ministry will also cut the fee for verifying the satisfaction of requirements for certificates of imported food stipulated in Circular No. 279/2016/TT-BTC.

Mai Tien Dung, minister and chairman of the Government Office, said at a recent meeting that all ministries will be grilled in the coming time over the necessity of maintaining specialized procedures.
According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, sector-specific inspections of goods now occupy 50% of the customs clearance time.

Minister Dung added that ministries should coordinate with each other to simplify administrative procedures.
According to statistics of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), enterprises now have to spend 28.6 million working days and VND14.3 trillion a year to comply with procedures for inspections of 100,000 product types.

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