The Department of Commerce and Finance's General Department of Customs and Excise of Cambodia (GDCE) generated revenue of $ 1.1595 billion in the first half of 2021, 8.9 percent less than a year earlier.
GDCE General Director Kun Nhem made this via video link at a meeting on July 14th to review the work of the department in the first half of this year.
He said the January-June revenue collection hit 49 percent of the 2021 target set in the Financial Management Act.
Value-added tax (VAT) made up the majority of revenues at 37.8 percent, followed by specific taxes (37.6 percent), customs duties (18.1 percent), consumption tax on petroleum products (4.5 percent) and Duties and other fees (two percent), he said.
Vehicles and machines topped the list of customs and excise tax revenues at 42.3 percent, followed by oil and energy (23.5 percent) and building materials and other taxes (6.2 percent), while other products made up 28 percent.
As part of its future work plan, created in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the GDCE will “continue to anchor good governance in the institution. . . (and) Strengthening the professional ethics of customs and excise officers, ”he said.
"GDCE will also seek compliance in the private sector, simplify customs procedures and improve trade facilitation mechanisms, strengthen cooperation initiatives with the private sector, strengthen the prevention and control of smuggling, improve work efficiency and optimize the implementation process of information and communication." Technology strategies (ICT), ”said Nhem.
Hong Vanak, director of international economics at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, previously told the Post that the far-reaching effects of Covid-19 had resulted in a decline in international trade in all countries.
The collapse of trade would inevitably lead to a decline in tax revenues, especially tariffs. "It is a fact that every country's customs revenues have declined during the Covid-19 pandemic, including Cambodia."
Last year, GDCE had sales of $ 2.4196 billion, a decrease of $ 795.5 million, or 24.8 percent, from 2019. This was 83.5 percent of the 2020 plan.