Fish and crustaceans – Vietnam

The draft Circular is developed to streamline and simplify administrative procedures, resolve practical bottlenecks, and enhance the validity and efficiency of state management regarding risk assessment and licensing for the import of live aquatic products, in alignment with the administrative reform policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. Accordingly, the Draft focuses on shortening the processing time for administrative procedures: the timeframe for issuing or reissuing live aquatic product import permits is reduced from 35 to 30 days for cases requiring risk assessment, and from 12 to nine days for cases not requiring risk assessment; notably, the timeframe for reissuing permits is significantly reduced from five days to two days. Furthermore, the Draft amends application requirements to promote electronic submissions, permitting the use of scanned copies of original documents to reduce costs for organizations and individuals, and waiving the requirement for certain documents if they are accessible via specialized databases. In addition, the Draft addresses several inadequacies arising from practical management. This includes standardizing the nomenclature of regulatory bodies in accordance with the new organizational model (replacing the 'General Department of Fisheries' with the 'Fisheries and Fisheries Inspection Department'; and the 'Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development' with the 'Ministry of Agriculture and Environment'). It also replaces all…