Trade liberalization and customs revenue in Vietnam

Abstract

The study assesses the impact of trade liberalization factors on changes in customs revenues in Vietnam. Research data was conducted between 2002 and 2017 on the official website of the Government's Web Portal and The World Bank. This paper uses the vector error correction model to estimate the short-term and long term relationship between data series. The results have proven that tariff reductions have a positive effect on short-term and long-term customs revenues in Vietnam. However, the implementation of other international commitments on trade liberalization has positive short-term and long-term negative impacts on customs revenues in Vietnam. The study's results also show that exchange rate has no effect on changes in customs revenues in the short term but it has a strong impact on increasing customs revenues in the long run. Based on these findings, the article also suggests a number of policies to ensure customs revenues in Vietnam in future. In order to ensure customs revenues, the government of Vietnam should: (1) having some policy to improve the efficiency of customs management in Vietnam; (2) Building appropriate VND exchange rate policy; (3) Establishing reasonable non-tariff barriers to prevent fraud and ovations cause losses in customs revenues.