Which imported goods can be transferred from tightened inspection to normal inspection in Vietnam?

In order to facilitate enterprises; protect legitimate rights and benefits of traders and consumers; improve efficiency of quality and food safety inspection of imported goods, the Decision No. 38/QĐ-TTg of the Prime Minister of Vietnam determines 07 reforms of quality and food safety inspection model for imported goods. In which, reform 2 is to uniformly apply all of 3 methods for both quality and food safety inspections in order to decrease the number of import shipments subject to inspection, specifically as follows:

- Tightened inspection means the combination of documentation examination and sampling for certification, inspection and testing;

- Normal inspection means the inspection of an application for quality and food safety inspection;

- Reduced inspection means the random inspection of documents not exceeding 5% of total import shipments subject to the reduced inspection in the previous year.

Conversion of inspection method: If goods are satisfactory after at least 03 consecutive tightened inspections, normal inspection may be applied. The reduced inspection shall be applied after goods are satisfactory after at least 03 consecutive normal inspections. Enterprises must not submit the written request for application of reduced inspection, the IT system and inspecting authority shall automatically determine goods subject to reduced or exempted inspection. The application and conversion of inspection methods shall depend on the level of risks and the possibility to cause unsafe situations by imported goods (e.g. goods with high level of risks such as explosives, veterinary drugs, etc. must bear tightened inspection to ensure quality of goods).

Thus, only goods which are satisfactory after at least 03 consecutive tightened inspections, it can be applied normal inspection. 

More details at the Decision No. 38/QĐ-TTg of the Prime Minister of Vietnam, effective from January 12, 2021.

Le Thanh

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