The Ministry of Finance builds a draft of the scheme on management of e-commerce activities to ensure the State's comprehensive management for this field. (Photo: tuyenquang.gov.vn)

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Finance is building a draft scheme on themanagement of e-commerce activities for imports and exꦫports.

The draft aims to improve State agencies’ efficiency incontrol of e-commerce activities to stop tax evasion, violations of regulationson commodities, intellectual property and origin, and transporting banned goodsto Vietnam and vice versa.

It also offers solutions to develop Vietnam’s e-commerceactivities, such as simplifying customs and specialised inspection procedures,aiming to protect the interests of manufacturers, traders and consumers.

However, due to limited human resources, time and funding,the draft focuses on solutions to control and facilitate trading on e-commercetrading floors or websites. The project does not cover sales on applicationssuch as Zalo and Facebook.

Subjects of this plan include State management agenciesrelated to e-commerce activities such as customs, tax, specialised managementand e-commerce management agencies; buyers (organisations and individuals);salespeople; owners of e-commerce trading floors; enterprises transportingexport and import goods; enterprises that are agents for e-commerce tradingfloors; e-commerce websites selling goods and services; and enterprises thatare agents implementing customs clearance, reported ictnews.vn.

According to a report by Google and Singaporean investmentmanagement firm Temasek, the size of the Vietnamese e-commerce market willincrease by 5.3 times in the next seven years from 2.8 billion USD in 2018 to 15billion USD in 2025.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam E-commerce Association’s report onVietnam E-commerce Index (EBI) in 2017-2019 said the average annual growth rateof Vietnam’s e-commerce market is from 25 percent to 30 percent.

If Vietnam maintains this growth rate, the market size in2025 will be ranked third in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and Thailand.

Currently, Vietnam has e-commerce platforms such as Lazada,Tiki, Shopee, Sendo, Adayroi and the growth rate of these sites is very high,with cross-border e-commerce activities increasing rapidly.

Therefore, management agencies need to change their approachto help develop the market.

E-commerceꦕ activities in Vietnam are under the management ofthe Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry ofIndustry and Trade manages licensing for e-commerce trading floors while theMinistry of Finance manages import and export taxes and control import andexport goods via e-commerce platforms.