Controlling cross-border e-commerce at the end of the year

The Customs Department has just announced that recently, smuggling and illegal transportation of gold, currency and goods have continued to be complicated, concentrated at border gates with neighboring countries. The customs sector has strengthened its direction and guidance on professional activities to combat and handle violations and achieved good results.

Consumers need to carefully research seller and product information when shopping online. (Photo: TUE NGHI)

However, in the industry's programs and action plans, there is a lack of directives and warning documents about the recently emerging phenomenon, which was clearly stated by Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien at the 10th session of the 15th National Assembly : E-commerce is developing very strongly (from 20 to 25%/year).

However, there is currently no separate law in this field. Current legal regulations have revealed shortcomings and difficulties, unable to solve new and important problems arising in practice such as: The emergence of many new business models, diverse in terms of subjects, complex in nature (livestream sales, multi-service business, multi-platform, tax collection, consumer rights protection, personal data protection, etc.).

Besides, we are facing difficulties in controlling and handling counterfeit goods, banned goods, goods that infringe intellectual property rights, and poor quality goods, especially in identifying sellers, tracing and handling violations.

The challenges of cross-border e-commerce activities in terms of fighting smuggling, trade fraud, counterfeit goods as well as the quality of imported goods need to be managed and the National Assembly is considering and is expected to pass the Law on E-commerce at the 10th session.

In the immediate future, to contribute to GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 of more than 8.4% as directed by the Prime Minister recently, from now on, the customs sector needs to proactively develop and resolutely implement solutions to increase revenue, prevent revenue loss, fight against smuggling and poor quality goods to protect the rights and health of consumers from cross-border e-commerce activities.

In 2024, the size of Vietnam's e-commerce market will reach 25 billion USD, e-commerce accounts for 10% of total retail sales of goods and may increase even higher during the upcoming Lunar New Year 2026.

Vietnam currently has more than 70,000 e-commerce websites and applications, many of which cross-border platforms do not fully comply with regulations, taking advantage of high-tech e-commerce activities, operating in cyberspace through websites, applications on anonymous mobile devices, using virtual accounts, junk SIM cards, server systems located abroad, through express delivery units, postal services to transport contraband and prohibited goods in the form of gifts, presents... causing many difficulties for the authorities.

The focus of the industry from now until the end of the year, in addition to traditional measures, is to further strengthen the application of digital transformation and information technology in the management and control of cross-border e-commerce activities, especially the exploitation of data from electronic customs monitoring systems, the use of software to control, verify, and trace the origin of goods, etc.

On the other hand, e-commerce is an interdisciplinary field, related to tax, customs, finance, cyber security, personal data protection. If there is a lack of a unified coordination mechanism, each agency will carry out its own tasks, leading to overlapping or missed tasks, making it difficult to control transactions, especially cross-border transactions.

This requires relevant agencies to promptly connect and share data, provide information to ensure synchronization and consistency in management; publicize the list of violating e-commerce platforms on the National E-commerce Portal for units that do not comply with regulations to enhance legal compliance in e-commerce activities, limit tax losses and cross-border fraud.

Source: https://baosonla.vn/kinh-te/kiem-soat-thuong-mai-dien-tu-xuyen-bien-gioi-dip-cuoi-nam-6KZxtrmvR.html