National STTA Impact Assessment Expert

USAID Trade Facilitation Program
SCOPE OF WORK

Support the regulatory impact assessment for the Decree on Information Sharing among Stakeholders in NSW

Proposed Personnel:              National STTA Impact Assessment Expert
Period of Performance:          December 28 3, 2021 – February 28, 2022
Level of Effort:                       TBD days
Activity No.:                            FY2022 Activity 1.1 – National Single Window and ASEAN Single Window [Sub-activitiy 1.1.2]
MEL indicator(s):                    P-1, IR1-1, IR1.2-2, IR4.1-1, IR4.1-2, CLBD-9
Travel Dates:                          N/A
Origin/Destination:                N/A

Project Background:

The USAID Trade Facilitation Program (TFP) is five-year project that aims to support Vietnam to adopt and implement a risk management approach to customs, which will facilitate the implementation of the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), of which both Vietnam and the United States (U.S.) are members. The Program will work with The General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC) to ensure simplification, harmonization, professionalization, and adoption and implementation of risk management approaches at the national and provincial levels to expedite cross-border trade and to enable Vietnam to implement WTO TFA commitments. The Program will work with the GDVC, private sector and other Government of Vietnam (GVN) agencies to simplify policies and across GVN units, foster stronger linkages between national and provincial levels, and improve coordination and implementation at the provincial level.

Overview

Objective: The aim of the activity is to provide technical assistance that will support GDVC in developing a Decree on Connection and Information Sharing in Exportation, Importation, Transit of Goods, People and Vehicles under the National Single Window. The final output of the activity will be a report inclusive of Impact Assessment of the draft decree.  

Background: The Vietnam NSW was launched in 2014 and by September 20, 2021, the NSW had connected with 13 ministries and processed over 4.1 million dossiers relating to 235 Administrative Procedures from more than 49,500 businesses. The number of administrative procedures has increased by 39 times and declared dossiers by 193 times.

Connecting with ASEAN Single Window, Vietnam NSW has exchanged C/O information using Form D with 9 ASEAN member countries. Vietnam NSW has received more than 400 thousand C/O from the ASEAN member countries and transferred more than 1 million C/O to ASEAN member countries.

Since August 2021, the VNSW has piloted the exchange of Declaration information with Indonesia, Brunei, Lao PDR and other members. It is expected that the pilot will be completed in October 2021 and officially launched in November 2021. At the same time, the preparation works are underway for connection and exchange of data on SPS certificates. Additionally, the MOF-GDVC has completed the pilot of test messaging of Customs Declaration information with the Eurasian Economic Union and has been negotiating the protocol and technical requirements for exchange of C/O information with the Eurasian Economic Union and Republic of Korea. The MOF-GDVC will implement ‘Agreement on Facilitating Agriculture, Aquaculture and Forestry products using electronic C/O” via NSW.    

These are important achievements that have brought benefits to the private sector as well as to the GVN helping to reduce transaction costs, facilitating international trade and improving the business environment of the country. Despite the successes, there have many existing issues that are hindering the trade flows.

Issues

The existing NSW system and respective systems of connecting ministries collects lots of information but the collected information is insufficient for robust risk management for purpose of goods clearance. This predicament is due to several reasons.

• The participating Government agencies tend to operate in a compartmental way and resort to their own source of information.  
• The IT applications and digitalization of operations are staggered and fragmented in ministries and agencies.
• Many agencies who play a key role in controlling the movement of goods along the supply chain have limited connection and information sharing with the NSW.
• The information shared currently has discrepancies in information format, the information is unstructured, often shared with much delay, and many madatory fields are overlapping, creating a burden on businesses in complying with the procedures
• There is a lack of a legal foundation for the realtime, structured and seamless inter-connection and information sharing among these regulatory agencies via NSW.

In order to overcome these shortcomings, there needs to be a new decree, which supersedes the existing regulatory documents owned by many ministries and agencies. Cognizant of the importance of institutionalizing the connection and sharing of information via NSW, the GDVC, as the administrator of NSW, has reported to MOF and Government and obtained approval for the development of a new decree governing Information Sharing among Stakeholders in NSW.

On October 18, 2021, the GDVC convened a meeting with all functional departments and key provincial customs departments to consult on the very first draft of the decree. The draft decree consists of 4 chapters, 25 articles, and 19 annexes. Annexes 1-17 are information to be shared by Ministries and Agencies, with annex 18 relating to information to be shared by business and annex 19 relating to information which can be shared with foreign Government agencies. The GDVC has set the timeline of organizing consultations activities in November 2021, appraisal by Ministry of Justice in December 2021 and issuance by the Government in Quarter 1 of 2022.

The GDVC has sought technical assistance from the Program under the existing Year 4 Workplan, Activity 1.1.2 ‘Support with building up the case and formulation of a model Decree on connection and sharing information between State agencies and other stakeholders through NSW’. The Program will support GDVC with:

• Conducting regulatory impact assessment for the draft Decree on connection and sharing information between State agencies and other stakeholders through NSW.

Methodology: The Program will mobilize a qualified and experienced National Impact Assessment Specialist to undertake this activity. The Impact Assessment Specialist will be responsible for collecting the information, conducting the desk research, calculation and assessment of the impacts required under the Law project. According to Article 6, Decree 34/2016/ND-CP to provide details for Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents, the to-be-assessed impacts of a policy include economic impact, social impact, gender impact, impact of administrative procedures and impact on the legal system. Given the nature of the draft Decree, it is expected that the following impact assessment will be included. 

• Economic impacts, which shall be assessed on the basis of conducting cost-benefit analysis for business, the investment and business environment, competitiveness of enterprises, public spending, public investment and other economic matters.
• Impacts of administrative procedures, which shall be assessed on the basis of analyzing and forecasting the necessity, legality, rationality and compliance costs of administrative procedures to implement the policy.
• Impacts on the legal system, which shall be assessed on the basis of analyzing and forecasting agencies’, organizations and individuals’ capacity for implementing and complying with the policy, impacts on the state apparatus, and Vietnam’s capacity for implementing and observing treaties.

National Impact Assessment Expert. In collaboration with the Program’s Legal and Regulatory Expert, the Local/National Impact Assessment Expert will work closely with the Customs IT & Statistics Department of GDVC, Office of the GDVC and as necessary, consult with other technical departments of GDVC, relevant line ministries and/or local [provincial] customs departments, and private sector stakeholders. The National Impact Assessment Expert may also be required to work in collaboration with other members of the Program team to undertake this activity.

Responsibilities and Tasks

The Local/National Impact Assessment Expert will, in cooperation with the GDVC and other relevant stakeholders, be responsible for the following:

• Collecting information and data necessary for the regulatory impact assessment
• Conducting desk research about Regulatory Impact Assessment of the Draft Decree
• Attend and provide technical inputs at any meetings, Focus Working Groups and/or the consultative workshops, which may take place, on the above impact assessment of the Draft Decree
• Produce drafted and finalized Regulatory Impact Assessment report with proposals for the Draft Decree
• Produce a Final Report containing details of all work carried out.

Deliverables:

• Workplan for completing the Regulatory Impact Assessment
• Research paper(s) containing contributions/inputs on the Regulatory Impact Assessment of the Draft Decree
• Active participation at any meetings, Focus Working Groups and/or consultative workshops, which may take place, and providing technical inputs on the Regulatory Impact Assessment of the Draft Decree
• Drafted and finalized Regulatory Impact Assessment with proposals for the Draft Decree
• Final Report containing details of all work carried out, and proposals for impact assessment for the Draft Decree

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in law, economics, business administration, international trade, trade policy, customs administration, or similar field (Bachelor degree with more than 10 years of experience in field may be accepted)
• Minimum 10 years of experience working on Impact Assessments, especially administrative procedures controlling in Vietnam
• Contextual knowledge and understanding of customs procedures, National Single Window, specialized inspection, risk management, and other technical customs matters
• Proficient in word processing, spreadsheets and office software such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Applications
• Fluency in Vietnamese and strong written, oral, and presentation skills
• English language skills preferred

Reporting

The NSW specialist will report to Ms. Phuong Vu, Legal & Regulatory Expert ([email protected] ); Mr. Andy Allan, the Senior Trade Facilitation Expert ([email protected] ); Mr. Claudio Dordi, COP, ([email protected]).

How to apply

Proposals should be submitted no later than December 23, 2021 to [email protected]

Proposals should include:

• Cover letter (no longer than 1 page)
• CVs (see attached template); 
• Updated USAID 1420 form (see attached template)
• Cost proposal (See attached template)