Vietnam on Wednesday unveiled a simplified customs procedure at three international seaports, claiming it will help cut customs clearance time by up to four days.

The new mechanism was kicked off by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh during a ceremony in Hanoi, and is being applied at the ports in the northern city of Hai Phong, as well as Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province in the south.

The new customs policy is called “single door” in Vietnamese, meaning businesses only have to work with one agency instead of many – like stepping through only one door – to have their customs cleared.

“This marks an important milestone in creating favorable conditions for customs activities in Vietnam,” the deputy prime minister said.

Under the new mechanism, businesses are required to submit their customs clearance form to the national online portal via the Internet, instead of sending written documents to different ministries and industries.

“Businesses can declare customs from anywhere rather than physically going to the relevant agencies,” Deputy Finance Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan told reporters in Hanoi.

“Businesses no longer have to obtain the inspection, quality and quarantine certificates for their products, or transfer these papers to the customs authorities.”

Upon receiving the online declarations, the customs agencies will verify them from the database of the national portal, according to the deputy minister.

“The biggest benefit of the simplified procedure is that it reduces the customs clearance time for businesses when arriving in or leaving Vietnam,” Tuan said.

As of the end of last year, it took businesses 21 days to clear customs.

“If the one-door policy is appropriately carried out, the time can be cut by 3.5 to 4 days,” he added.

Tuan noted, however, that the national online portal is currently connected with the administrative procedures of only the finance and transport ministries.

The database from the Ministry of Industry and Trade is expected to be connected to the portal in the next two weeks, while connections from the health, agriculture and natural resources ministries and the border soldier stations are scheduled for the second quarter of next year.

Applying the simplified procedure in Vietnam serves as the basis for the ASEAN single-door customs mechanism, slated to be applied in 2016.

ASEAN is a ten-member bloc which includes such Southeast Asian countries as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Under the plan, businesses from the ASEAN countries will declare customs via the ASEAN single-door mechanism when they are exporting to or importing from each other.

Vietnam will pilot the single-door customs mechanism with Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines next year.

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