Regulations on int’l goods trading activities
VGP – The Ministry of Finance on January 27, 2014 issued Circular No. 04/2014/TT-BTC (Circular 04) guiding some regulations on international goods trading activities and agent activities of buying, selling, processing and conducting goods transit with foreigners.
Imports under tariff quotas
Circular 04 stipulates four types of imported goods under tariff quotas including salt, tobacco, poultry eggs, refined sugar and raw sugar.
Importing under tariff quotas is applied by the principle that the items on the list of imports under tariff quotas shall be subject to requirement of an import license for the entitlement to import duty rate of the tariff quotas.
The items on the import tariff quota applying list without any license from the Ministry of Industry and Trade shall be subject to a tax rate outside of the tariff quota; meanwhile the tobacco import outside of the tariff quota aimed at producing cigarettes shall be performed under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Import licensing for traders importing under the tariff quotas shall be dealt with within ten working days from the date of allocating as agreed by the Ministries and the Bodies.
Importing automobiles of all kinds
Used automobiles of all kinds shall satisfy condition that the vehicles were used less than 5 years old from the production year to the import year.
The other relevant regulations shall be implemented under the guidance of the Ministries of specialized management.
The import of passenger cars under 16 seats shall be kept unchanged as set out in Joint Circular No. 03/2006/TTLT-BTM-BGTVT-BTC-BCA dated March 31 2006 jointly by the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Security guiding the import of used passenger cars with less than 16 seats and Circular No. 19/2009/TT-BCT dated July 7, 2009 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade amending and supplementing Joint Circular No. 03/2006/TTLT-BTM-BGTVT-BTC-BCA.
Circular 04 maintains a ban on importing right-hand drive (improper drive) vehicles, disassembling automobiles during transportation and importation and importing second-hand ambulances.
Processing goods for foreign traders
Circular 04 guides a number of articles on goods processing for foreign traders. Accordingly, for goods on the list subject to conditional business as regulated by the Ministries or the Ministerial-level specialized management agencies, only the traders who meet the statutory specialized conditions in producing and trading the listed product are eligible to process for foreign export./.
