Quarterly Report January – March 2019

The program aims to facilitate the implementation of the World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and strengthen the role and capacity of the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC) to effectively implement and coordinate trade facilitation policies and procedures. The program's primary counterpart is the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC), which also acts as the focal point of the NTFC for Vietnam. The program will support national and provincial stakeholders in promoting the benefits of a risk management approach to specialized inspections mandated by line ministries to protect food safety, public health, and the environment. Specialized inspections are considered a major impediment to trade, causing significant delays in border clearance. The program's activities are organized into four components: Component 1 focuses on harmonizing and simplifying key risk management and specialized inspections-related policies at the central level and strengthening the role of the NTFC. Component 2 aims to strengthen national-provincial coordination of trade facilitation strategies and facilitate import and export of goods. Component 3 targets strengthening provincial-level implementation and inter-provincial coordination in at least five targeted provinces. Component 4 focuses on enhancing the partnership between customs and the private sector. In Quarter 2 of Fiscal Year 2019, the program made significant progress in several areas. The program successfully negotiated an agreement with the GDVC on the selection of six provinces to be the initial focus of program activities. The program also finalized the provincial selection process, demonstrating the strengthened trust the GDVC has in the program's capacity as a professional and reliable counterpart for technical assistance. The program's prompt response to ad-hoc requests from the GDVC, such as seeking support to develop functional and operational specifications for a new GDVC Information Communication Technology (ICT) system, has been an important step in proving the program's professional capacity and results-oriented attitude. The program also made substantial progress in several cross-cutting activities, including the development of the Private Sector Engagement Strategy and Plan and the Strategic Communications Plan. Given the likelihood of a delayed ODA approval, the program will focus on starting the implementation of new pre-ODA authorized activities and on the preparation of the program launch event, in addition to completing the cross-cutting deliverables. The program will support a new workshop of the Specialized Inspection Legal Review (SILR) and four training courses on using the WCO Customs Learning and Knowledge Community (CliKC!) for training the GDVC officers on different customs and trade facilitation issues. The program will also carry out a Business Process Analysis (BPA) in selected provinces, focused on the Specialized Inspection (SI) procedures managed by local customs and line Departments. Finally, the program will cooperate with the CBP customs attaché based in Bangkok to prepare an activity action plan to implement the compliance measurement program in Vietnam. Should the program receive the ODA approval in the next quarter, it may support the implementation of other Year-1 Work Plan activities if specifically requested by the GDVC.