Speeches Shim
Specialized inspection is a customs clearance procedure in Vietnam implemented by line ministries on import and export of goods. Currently, overlapping specialized inspections by different ministries consume 70% of clearance time, causing unnecessary delay in customs clearance. On December 25-27, the USAID Trade Facilitation Program supported the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC) to organize a workshop for a focus working group in charge of a draft scheme to reform specialized inspections.
The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)-listed species are particularly vulnerable to illegal trade. Vietnam’s CITES permitting system for compliant trade in wildlife is still manual and paper-based, which complicates Vietnam Customs’ ability to control imports, exports, and customs clearance and ultimately slows permit verification, facilitating commercial misconduct in wild fauna and flora imports and exports. To help Vietnam tackle this challenge, the USAID Saving Species project is supporting the Vietnam CITES Management Authority (CITES Vietnam) to develop E-CITES, an online tool for issuing electronic CITES permits and managing the CITES implementation database which is interconnected with other systems, including those of Vietnam Customs.
Vietnam is finalizing its first ever Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Law, which aims to tackle the country's current budget constraints by securing private capital from PPPs to meet its sustainable infrastructure needs. USAID has been providing Vietnam’s National Assembly (NA) as well as the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) with technical drafting support, private sector input, and research and analysis on some critical topics to draft the law. To ensure that the draft PPP Law is rooted in international best practice, USAID invited Professor Akash Deep, a global authority on PPPs and faculty chair of the Infrastructure in a Market Economy Executive Program at Harvard University, to Vietnam from December 17-20.
In July 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a fixed dose combination of Tenofovir–Lamivudine–
Beehive stoves, which are popular in Vietnam, rely on coal and produce significant amounts of carbon monoxide, which can be toxic to human and animal health. It is estimated that Hanoi alone consumes approximately 528 tons of coal and produces 1,870 tons of carbon dioxide per day. USAID's Clean Air Green Cities activity has been working closely with the Hanoi Department of National Resources and Environment as well as urban districts to reduce the use of coal beehive stoves by mobilizing local partners to take collective action and advocate for clean air.
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