Vietnam's trade turnover hit $252.8bn in 2013

Vietnam's export and import turnover through e-customs procedures hit 252.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, up 25 percent year-on-year, said a report posted Friday on the website of the Ministry of Finance (MOF). The report released at a conference on reviewing tasks of 2013 and implementing tasks of 2014 in Hanoi on Thursday said the export-import turnover through e-customs procedures accounts for 96 percent of the country's total export and import revenue. During January-December period in 2013, 34 customs departments around the country applied e-customs procedures, drawing participation of 49,900 companies and posting an increase of 16.6 percent over 2012, said the report. State budget revenue collected by the General Department of Customs hit 220 trillion Vietnamese dong (10.42 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, up 11.4 percent year-on-year, according to the MOF website. Speaking at the conference, Vietnamese Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung said in order to fulfill the tasks of 2014, the customs sector should speed up administrative reform, especially applying information technology into customs procedures, to create favorable conditions for trading activities and improve risk management capacity to reduce the state budget losses.