Lao PDR General Information
The core system of the Lao National Single Window (LNSW) has been developed. The system was tested by some end-users such as Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Public Work and Transport, Ministry of Agriculture and economic operators. Some amendments were made as the result of the testing in order to meet actual in need of the end-users. At present, the system is ready of pilot phase. The pilot phase will commence in June 2016 which will include e-permit issuing by Department of Import and Export Control, Ministry of Industry and Commerce. Then the application will be extended to other agencies including CO and SPS issuant authorities. In parallel, Customs will work with concerned parties in integrating the LNSW with the e-Customs clearance system so necessary data can be exchange between both systems.
The current updates of Lao National Single Window
Government of Lao PDR has established a Public Private Partnership company to develop and provide service on national single window. Currently, the core system of the Lao National Single Window (LNSW) has been developed. The system was tested by Ministry of Industry and Commerce. This is a pilot phased next phase, It will continue to link Ministry of Public Work and Transport, Ministry of Agriculture and economic operators.
The pilot testing is ongoing with issuing e-permit by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. The Customs Department is preparing to sign the MOU with Department of Transport exchange information, through the National Single Window System, on the Certificate of Automobile Technical Specification issued by the Department of Transport.
Meanwhile, Lao Customs has requested, via ASEAN Secretariat, the US-ACTI to provide technical assistance on conducting National Single Window needs assessment and ASEAN Single Window Briefing. The main purpose of the proposal is to help Lao PDR well prepare to successfully join ASEAN Single Window in 2017. The support activities would include assessment of existing operational ITC applications, evaluating the compatibility of the ITC infrastructure and providing technical recommendations, if needed, to improve or upgrade the existing ITC system to ensure successful integration with ASEAN Single Window.
Up to date the development of LNSW system has been completed and tested. Initially we planned to launch our NSW in last March but we faced technical problems in interfacing our NSW with the bank system as an attempt to activate e-payment module. Therefore, we had to postponed the launch of our NSW to the end of this April.
Beside developing the system, legal framework has also been developed to support the implementation of the LNSW. In January 2019, the Minister of Finance issued an administrative decision on implementation of the LNSW such regulation serves as a legal base for government agencies to develop their own administrative instructions/guidelines on streamline and seamless procedures for issuing permit/license/certificate through the LNSW.
In addition, we have conducted trainings for all end users. They seemed to be already to join the live operation.
Last year US-ACTI provided a technical assistance on conducting National Single Window needs assessment and ASEAN Single Window Briefing to help us well prepare to join ASEAN Single Window. The US-ACTI experts have assessed our existing operational applications and compatibility of the ITC infrastructure and indicated that our current NSW system has the technical capability to join the ASW live operation 2019.
Having consulted with the expert and relevant authorities, we decided that we will develop the gateway application for exchanging the information with the ASW. Our main challenge now is on the integration between the National Single Window with the Electronic CO System which has been developed and operated by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. Base on the initial assessment it was found that there are needs to upgrade the e-CO system to be able to link and exchange information with our NSW.
