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The two General Directors of Vietnam and Laos Customs exchanged the cooperation minutes. Photo: H.Nu

Cooperation brings many results

Speaking at the conference, Director General of Vietnam Customs Nguyen Van Tho affirmed the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Laos.

In recent years, in order to foster cooperative relations, the Customs authorities of the two countries have also sent many working delegations to visit and exchange experiences in customs management.

The results of the visits and working sessions show that the cooperation between Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs is built on trust in coordination, support, and mutual assistance for mutual development.

The Customs of the two countries also pay special attention to building, maintaining, preserving and developing the cooperative relationship between the two customs agencies and making the cooperative relationship increasingly substantive and practical, facilitating economic exchange, trade, investment and travel activities between the people of the two countries.

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Director General Nguyen Van Tho. Photo: H.Nu

The Director General of Vietnam Customs also emphasized: “Vietnam Customs always respects, preserves and cares about further developing this special relationship. Therefore, this Conference is an opportunity for the two Customs agencies to look back on the cooperation journey and discuss action plans for 2025.”

Sharing with pride, Director General of Lao Customs Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay said that recently, Lao Customs has achieved many positive results in all aspects of work.

Lao Customs has deployed the Electronic Customs Declaration System with 20 modules and has completed the connection with the information technology systems of ministries, branches and enterprises. Lao Customs always prioritizes human resource development to improve the performance in state management of customs.

Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay said that the exchange, sharing and support in professional activities of Vietnam Customs in recent times have brought many useful results for Lao Customs in the process of development.

6 coordination contents in 2025

At the conference, the leaders of the two countries' Customs said that the cooperation and mutual support activities between the two sides over the past many years have basically met the requirements of improving the effectiveness of state management of customs in the two countries.

The friendly cooperation has ensured the implementation of international commitments of which both sides are members and contributed to enhancing mutual understanding and tightening the good cooperative relationship between the Customs agencies of the two countries.

In order to further strengthen and develop the cooperative and mutual support relationship towards the goal of facilitating and ensuring security for Vietnam - Laos trade, on behalf of Vietnam Customs and Laos Customs, Director General Nguyen Van Tho and Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay agreed to approve the cooperation plan in 2025.

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Director General Phoukhaokham Vannavongxay. Photo: H.Nu

Accordingly, in 2025, the two agencies will implement 6 coordination contents. Specifically, the two sides will hold talks and exchange experiences on anti-smuggling investigations within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on anti-smuggling investigations between the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam and Laos.

Vietnam Customs will send officers to train and improve the capacity of Lao Customs officers in the areas of collecting, analyzing and processing information from intelligence sources. At the same time, it will send officers to train and improve the capacity of Lao Customs officers in the areas of controlling, investigating and handling arrests, criminal and drug cases.

The two sides will also exchange experiences on methods of determining value, origin and classification of import and export goods; the two sides will exchange experiences on post-clearance inspection; and organize a conference of the General Directors of Lao - Vietnam Customs to evaluate the results of implementing the proposed plan.

Despite the many fluctuations in the world and regional situation in recent years, with many difficulties and challenges, trade between the two countries still recorded high growth.

Specifically, in 2022 and 2023, two-way trade turnover between the two countries will reach over 1.6 billion USD, an increase of nearly 20% compared to 2021. In 2024, two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and Laos in the first 9 months of the year will reach nearly 1.5 billion USD, an increase of 16.7% over the same period in 2023.

That growth was partly due to the contribution of the two Customs agencies in implementing measures to facilitate trade.

Tien Dung