Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(BCTTCK) -TRỊNH HUYỀN LINH-K56CLC3-1701015421
(BCTTCK) -TRỊNH HUYỀN LINH-K56CLC3-1701015421
----------***----------
Class: K56CLC3
Author
(Signature with full name)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Upon completing this report, the author would like to express sincerest thanks to Board
of Directors and all the staffs of Kim Thinh Trading Co., Ltd, specifically Mrs. Nguyen
Kim Uyen for guiding the author through the internship period. The author is also very
grateful for providing specialized knowledge, support and guidance of all lecturers in
Foreign Trade University - Ho Chi Minh Campus, especially the author’s supervisor,
Ph.D Nguyen Thi Quynh Nga. Due to the limited time to prepare and insufficient
knowledge, this report cannot fully satisfy all the expected requirements, and
shortcomings are unavoidable. Therefore, the author is really looking forward to
straightforward and contributive feedbacks from the Supervisor for this report and
supervisor at Kim Thinh Trading Co., Ltd to improve the performance of this report.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
PREFACE.................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.General information..................................................................................................1
1.2.Development Process................................................................................................2
1.5.Roles of the Importing activities of precious metal salt in Kim Thinh Trading Co.,
Ltd.................................................................................................................................. 7
2.1.Overview of the Precious metal salts import procedure in Kim Thinh Trading Co.,
Ltd................................................................................................................................ 10
2.2.Detailed process of the Precious metal import procedure in Kim Thinh Trading Co.,
Ltd................................................................................................................................ 11
2.3. Comparison in the process between importing Precious metal salts and importing
other goods of Kim Thinh:...............................................................................................21
2.4.1. Strengths..........................................................................................................23
3.1.1. Opportunities...................................................................................................27
3.1.2. Threats.............................................................................................................29
3.2. Orientation.............................................................................................................30
3.3. Recommendation to improve importing process for precious metal salts in Kim
Thinh Trading Co., Ltd.................................................................................................31
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................33
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations Meaning
D/P Document against Payment
L/C Letter of Credit
TTR Telegraphic Transfer Reimbursement
MT Metric Ton
FTA Free Trade Agreement
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CFO Chief Finance Officer
CCO Chief Customer Officer
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1 Main Business sector of Kim Thinh.................................................................2
Figure 1-2 Organizational Structure chart of Kim Thinh...................................................3
Figure 2-1 Proportion of used payment method in Kim Thinh in 2020............................20
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1-1 Human resource management in Kim Thinh (2020)..........................................5
Table 1-2 Business outcomes from 2017 to Oct 2020........................................................6
Table 1-3 Import turnover of precious metal salt and total revenue...................................7
Table 1-4 Summary of the internship.................................................................................8
Table 2-1 The Import procedure of precious metal salts in Kim Thinh............................10
Table 2-2 List of Commodities in Sales contract between Kim Thinh and Metalor No.
KT-MTS 044/20............................................................................................................... 11
1
PREFACE
The development in economy has been improving the quality of life for
Vietnamese. They have higher income and demand for their self-esteem and personal
caring. Due to that reason, the demand for jewelry and accessories has been increasing
remarkably. In addition, thanks to the support of Vietnam government, Decree 24/NĐ-CP
has brought stability to the gold market and creates favorable conditions for large
enterprises in the jewelry field to develop production facilities and business expansion on
the national scale. Noticing the potential development of output goods for precious metal
salt, Kim Thinh has always tried their best to perform well in this market. With
approximately 11 years of experience, the Company has gained some certain
achievements and proved themselves on such a competitive market to have the ability to
be the supplier for some of the well-known jewelry companies such as PNJ, DOJ and
BHFlex Vina.
With an aim to understand the details of import procedures of this interesting
business field, and in accordance with the requirements of Foreign Trade University
concerning graduation internship, the author has worked as an intern for more than three
months in Kim Thinh Trading Limited Company and decided to choose the topic
“PROCESS OF IMPORTING PRECIOUS METAL SALTS AT KIM THINH
TRADING COMPANY LIMITED” to obtain the overview of metal import situation by
engaging in the reality and then analyze the opportunities and challenges in order to
suggest some recommendations for improving process with the author’s viewpoints. This
report is composed of three main parts as the following:
Chapter 1: Introduction of Kim Thinh Trading Limited Company
Chapter 2: Analysis of the procedure of importing Precious Metal salts at Kim
Thinh Trading Limited company
Chapter 3: Development prospect, Orientation and some recommendations for
Kim Thinh Trading Limited company.
For the fulfillment of this report, the author wish to express her gratitude to Board
of Director, Mrs. Nguyen Kim Uyen, CEO – Chief Executive Officers and Mrs. Bui
2
Thuy Vy, Senior Manager of Import- Export Department, for all their helpful and
detailed guidance throughout my internship.
Despite all my efforts, due to limited time and restricted self-capabilities, this report
must contain ineluctable errors and mistakes. Thus, I am grateful for all precious
comments and contributions to make this report better.
Ho Chi Minh City, 21/12/2020
Author
(Signature with full name)
3
Aluminum
Non-ferrous metals Zinc
Palladium Gold
Precious metals Rhodium Silver
(Source: Background report of Kim Thinh Trading Co.,Ltd and compiled by the author)
Hoa Sen Group, Nam Kim Steel Vietnam, Dong A Steel & Metal. Other main product
categories are precious metals and precious metal salts used in jewelry industry which are
in the supply or two main partners: PNJ, DOJ and BHFlex Vina. Kim Thinh is also
looking forward to integrate exportation of the company’s reproduced metals in Laos and
Cambodia.
In 2016, the company opened a new branch in Hanoi with 10 employees in order to
find more customers and enlarge the market shares. Up to now, Kim Thinh has had two
warehouses together with two bonded warehouses and consignment stock in Ho Chi
Minh City and one warehouse in Hanoi. In order to expand the business activities, in
2018, the company has built a factory with 100-employees large to produce its own
special metal alloy supplying for both domestic and foreign markets.
Human Resource
CEO
Department
Sales Department
Import-Export Deparment
General CCO
Director
Market Research Department
Logistics Department
Under the General Director, there are other positions who are CEO, CFO and CCO
take overall control and manage inferior department. Each department is in charge of
certain business activity of the company. Through this model, the uniform and
association in implementing policies and rules of the Company is clearly shown through
such way of management. As a result, the Company is able to fulfill their goals properly
and has proven the definite place in the absolutely competitive market.
Sales Department
The major activities of this department are in the territory of Vietnam such as finding
new customers, keeping the business relationship with past customers, and advising the
best products that are suitable with the customers’ needs in order to push sales volume for
the company.
Logistics Department
This function plays an important role of one transaction as their job relates to most of the
other departments. They will prepare any other required documents for customs clearance
inside the country such as Import License, accomplish customs clearance procedures in
ports, and in case of exporting, book vessels. All of their tasks must based on appropriate
delivery plans created at first.
7
Accounting Department
Their role is to calculate, analyze and evaluate the financial activities, manage the
investing project and monitor all assets and capital of the company for the most
efficiency of the company operation. The Department has the well-qualified and
experienced employees as this function of the company manages the flow of money and
an assessment base for the Board of Directors
From the above table, we can see that the number of male and female employees
doesn’t have much differences (45.5% and 54.5% respectively). In the age perspective,
employees who are above 30 are three times larger than those who are under 30. It can be
assumed that the company is old based on the reason being that most of the employees
are transferred from Gia Kim Company - the premise company of Kim Thing Trading
Limited Company and have been working until now. Moreover, the company does not
8
have much changes in the number of staff in the last 4 years, every year increases one or
two members only.
To sum up, the company is a small type of business. However, the company is
being rejuvenated by recruiting a number of young candidates to create a dynamic and
balanced working environment. Therefore, the Human Resource Department should have
a renewal of the labor forces to make it consistent with the development of the company
and also with day-by-day advancement of the economy.
as well as the world. The required input supply increased in canned industry, housing
equipment, transportation.
With a vision of this potential market and the increase in profit in the previous year -
2017, in 2019, the company decided to operate a factory producing special alloy of zinc
and aluminum. For this reason, the cost in 2019 was very high (1,529.4 billion VND) that
almost reached the total revenue of the year, leading to a decrease in profit which was 2.6
billion fewer compared to the previous one. However, the company recovered
remarkably in 2018 with the increase of 1.9 billion VND by 4.6 billion VND, nearly
double the previous year figures. Moreover, because of the characteristics of the products
which are metals and precious metals, it depends heavily on the world market prices,
especially the gold prices. The more fluctuating the world prices are, the more unstable
the trading activities are. This challenge requires the company to quickly adapt with the
unexpected changes and flexibly build plans for recovery and development. And it seems
that Kim Thinh was successful in maintaining a positive rate of return continuously and
having effective and efficient strategies.
1.5. Roles of the Importing activities of precious metal salt in Kim Thinh Trading
Co., Ltd
With the beginning aim of the company’s establishment which was to bring quality
metals into Vietnam production, importation was the oriented operation of Kim Thinh
that can be seen from the increase of volume of importing precious metal salt from years
to years illustrated from the following table:
Table 1-3 Import turnover of precious metal salt and total revenue
Unit: billion VND
2017 2018 2019 Oct 2020
Total revenue 601.50 911.90 1,092.10 1,612.80
Import turnover of 101.90 294.40 402.70 487.60
precious metal salt
Percentage (%) 16.94 % 32.28 % 36.87 % 30.23 %
(Source: Annual Import and Export Report 2017 – Oct 2020, summarized by the author)
The increase in revenue is due to many opportunities from economical conditions in
Vietnam: the tax applied for this field has the preferential tax rate of zero percent.
10
To sum up, Chapter 1 briefly presents some general information about Kim Thinh
Trading limited company. To be specific, the readers can approach the company’s
formation and development progress, organizational structure and human resources
management as well as the business performance from 2017 to Oct 2020. From that, it
can be implied that the company is a developing and potential firm in the trend of
globalization. Further more, these information and data would be a fundamental basis
for further analysis of the importing procedures of precious metal salt in the next
Chapter.
12
2.1. Overview of the Precious metal salts import procedure in Kim Thinh Trading
Co., Ltd
Kim Thinh Trading Limited Company has 11 years of experience in importing
precious metals as being the sole representative office of Metal, a well-known
corporation of Switzerland, in Vietnam. The general process of importation for precious
metals is described according to the table 2.1:
Table 2-5 The Import procedure of precious metal salts in Kim Thinh
On top of that, the prerequisite requirements of being a trader for precious metals is
important and strictly based on the Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP which specified detailed
conditions on chemical manufacturing and trading. Because of this, the company who
acts as a trader in this precious metal field must obtain themself a certificate which is
known as the “Business License for Trading restricted Chemicals in the Industrial sector”
(Appendix 01) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam. This License
13
issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade for Kim Thinh has unlimited expiry period
but will limit the imported quantity every year. The company is then allowed to import
the listed chemicals in this Decree.
2.2. Detailed process of the Precious metal import procedure in Kim Thinh
Trading Co., Ltd
The following import procedure is expressed in general and in specific based on the
Sales Contract No. KT-MTS 044/20 (Appendix 03) between Kim Thinh Trading Co., Ltd
and Metalor Technologies Singapore Pte Ltd. from Singapore to Vietnam.
Table 2-6 List of Commodities in Sales contract between Kim Thinh and Metalor
No. KT-MTS 044/20
Order will be sent from the Sales Department to the Importing Department. After having
all information of the required goods such as Name, Code, Quantity, estimated delivery
schedule, The Importing Department shall contact by online call to the Sales Department
of Metalor. The draft sales contract after that will be sent via Email to Ms. Hien, who is
in charge of the precious metals field in Kim Thinh.
After briefly checking all the terms and conditions in this contract, Ms. Hien will
confirm and notify the Exporter via Email to proceed signing and faxing email to Ms.
Hien. This process usually takes 01 day only.
This sales contract was signed on 19th October, 2020, between METALOR
TECHNOLOGIES SINGAPORE PTE LTD who is “The Seller” and KIM THINH
TRADING CO., LTD. who is “The Buyer”. Here are some of the significant terms and
conditions for a Contract of precious metal salts:
- Shipment: including Shipment term (Ex-works Singapore), Partial
shipment is allowed, Transshipment is allowed, Port of loading (Singapore
Airport) and Port of discharge (Tan Son Nhat Airport, HCMC, Vietnam)
- Payment: TTR after receiving the goods
- Documents required:
Full set of Original Airway bill, marked “Freight to collect”
Commercial invoice
Detailed Packing List
In terms of shipment, due to the characteristics of Precious metal Salts which are
valuable and not bulky, normally about 20-100 kilograms only, these goods will be
delivered by Air with Ex-works terms. As the company has been working with a familiar
forwarder so all goods delivered by air shall be in Ex-works. Moreover, Kim Thinh is the
representative office of Metalor in Vietnam, the business relation is connected, so the
payment term is TTR (Telegraphic Transfer) after receiving the goods. In addition, the
required documents listed in the Sales Contract do not conclude a CO (Certificate of
Origin). For most importing and exporting sales contracts, this document is extremely
important because it will cut off the tax rates depending on the type of CO. However, for
this business field which is Precious Metals or Precious Metal Salts, the import tax rate is
0%. Therefore, the exporter does not need to issue the CO for Kim Thinh. However, as
15
what the author has mentioned in the above part, the first and foremost condition to work
in this kind of field is to acquire the “Business License for Trading restricted Chemicals
in the Industrial sector” (Appendix 01) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
days before the delivery date. When receiving this email which includes Freight Bill
(Appendix 08), VAT Invoice (Appendix 09), and copy AWB, Ms. Hien will notify the
Accounting Department to pay for these invoices. The total payable amount for this
transaction is about 15 million VND. These copy documents are saved and sent to the
Import-Export Department for checking delivery status and for doing payment afterward,
Logistics Department for customs declaration and Accounting Department for cost and
money tracking.
After filling in all required documents and attaching all the related copy documents
on the website, he clicked on the Finish button and waited for the Customs executives to
admit. The whole process until receiving acceptance from the Ministry of Industry and
Trade and Vietnam Chemical Agency may take about one day. When the system notify
that the License has been approved, it will send a copy of this License. However, the
documents admitting to Custom Declaration require the originals of this License not just
only the copy version. As a result, Mr. Luan had to contact the Logistics Department in
18
Kim Thinh Ha Noi branch to receive this License at the office of Vietnam Chemical
Agency in Hanoi and send it by DHL to Ho Chi Minh City.
The total period of time for the whole procedure takes about 1-2 days. Hence, this
step must be finished completely before applying for the custom declaration so it needs
careful and proper preparation for this.
Mr. Luan then started to implement this process under the author’s observation. He
logged into the account of the company in ECUS, an app for doing the customs
declaration. This step takes more than 1 -2 hours depending on the number of
commodities. The more type of goods the longer it takes to do the customs clearance. In
specific, with this Contract, Mr. Luan filled specific information for six (06) commodities
with the following information: general information of importer and exporter, Invoice
number, Contract number, Gross weight, payment terms, delivery term. Tax rate, HS
code, total value, number of License for Precursor chemicals, Description of good,
Taxable value. This step requires proper accuracy because if there are any mistakes to be
found, this customs declaration form will be rejected and lead to the result that the goods
will be stuck in Customs, and the Logistic Department will have to explain to the
customs executive about the mistakes and make an amendment form that takes much
more time and effort for remedy.
After doing the double-check all the filled information on ECUS and attached a full
set of documents on the app which includes the following documents: License of
Precursor Chemicals (Appendix 02), Sales Contract (Appendix 03), Metalor Tax Invoice,
(Appendix 04), Air waybill (Appendix 05), Arrival Notice (Appendix 07), the screenshot
of vnsw.gov.vn page showing successful declaration of Chemical (Appendix 10), Mr.
Luan pressed the button and waited for the result of specifying Customs line whether it is
Red line, Yellow line, or Green Line. This took about 5-10 minutes only as the selectivity
profile system of ECUS will quickly scan the information and admit the result. The
shipment that the author has been working on is unfortunately divided in the Red Line.
20
Hence, Mr. Luan must continue to provide paper form and apply for the inspection form
for the goods in the Customs office in Tan Son Nhat port.
Firstly, in the SCSC office, the author was instructed to obtain the order of taking-
out the goods. In order to have this order, Mr. Luan had to pay for the storage fee and
importing charges first. After the payment was done, he received the tax invoice and
added it to the documents applied to the custom broker. This is as important as other
documents, showing that you have paid for all the fees and charges before releasing the
goods. This step occurred in just about 20 minutes as there were about 4-5 executives
ready to support in this section.
After that, they walked to the custom broker. Except for the registered vehicles, no
other vehicles were allowed to move in this whole area. In the custom broker, Mr. Luan
21
arranged all the documents in a particular order: custom declaration form, Airway bill,
goods’ invoice, C/O, SCSC Invoice, Transpeed’s Order, C/I and C/A. These documents
were firstly submitted to the vice manager, and then he would appoint an import
executive randomly. Mr. Luan transferred the documents to the appointed executive for
custom clearance procedure.
This executive considered that this shipment is classified in the Red line which was
shown on the custom declaration form, so she then transferred these documents to an
inspection executive. This step is only required in case of the Red Line arising from
doubts regarding the customs declaration, monitoring, or suspicion of smuggling or
trademark violations. But before contacting this inspection executive, Mr. Luan had to
acquire the permit to move the goods out of the warehouse for inspection first. He came
to meet the warehouse executives and submitted the shipping documents for the goods
releasing permit. Based on the information of these documents, the executives filled in
the data and exported a permit. Mr. Luan then received the documents and the permit.
While the goods are moved from the warehouse to the receiving area, he then contacted
inspection executives to accomplish the inspection step. These executives unpacked the
goods and examined all the information on the goods compared to the submitted
documents and asked Mr. Luan some major questions of the goods, for instance: the
commercial name, its substances, purposes, business field, value, origin, etc. After
examining, if all the information and the goods are found to be rational and accurate,
these inspectors called the import executive to acknowledge the custom declaration and
the goods can be released. Mr. Luan came back to the customs broker and received the
cleared documents.
Finally, Mr. Luan and the author walked back to the bonded warehouse to apply for
a good-release allowance. He then once again submitted the acknowledged documents to
the warehouse executives for the release permit. This permit is different from the
previous permit as the previous one is only for the inspection process. After obtaining the
permit, these executives will construct a logistic coordinator to move the goods from the
bonded warehouse to the receiving area. In the meantime, the author and Mr. Luan did
the registration for transportation. As what the author has mentioned, only registered
22
vehicles can move around the warehouse. The goods are then moved to a specific
location based on the registration of the vehicles and finally placed on the trucks and
moved to Kim Thinh’s warehouse. This whole process occurred in more than five hours
due to the inspection procedure.
30%
35%
Telehraphic Transfer
Documents against
Payment
Letter of Credit
35%
In Kim Thinh, there are 3 types of payment methods being used, which are: Letter
of Credit (L/C), Documents against Payment (D/P) and Telegraphic Transfer
Reimbursement (TTR). The frequency usage of each payment method is briefly described
in Figure 2.1.
Even though there are various terms of payment, and also particularly with Precious
metal salts filed, the Supplier who is Metalor has allowed Kim Thinh to pay by
Telegraphic Transfer after receiving the goods. Normally, this payment terms would be
unfavored with the Seller as it would be too risky. However due to the business
relationship between Metalor and Kim Thinh which is the representative office of
Metalor in Vietnam for more than 10 years, this kind of payment is allowed to be used.
By using this kind of payment term, Kim Thinh not only can save much time for payment
23
but also reduce the bank fees compared to other methods of payment. Because of using
TTR payment, the original documents are couriered by DHL before the ETA - Estimated
time of Arrival to the office of Kim Thinh for the Logistics to do the customs clearance.
Following the financial arrangement of Mrs. Nga, CFO of the company, the author
under the instruction of Ms. Quynh in the Import-export Department, prepared the set of
documents while waiting for the exchange rate negotiating between Kim Thinh and the
International Payment Department of the bank. The required documents are different
from terms of payment and from every bank. Normally in terms of Telegraphic Transfer
after receiving the goods, the required documents are including but not limited to these
following documents: custom declaration form marked as “clearance”, Signed
Commercial Invoice, Signed Sales contract, Bill of Lading or Airwaybill. After the
exchange rate was confirmed by both sides, the author filled in the information on the
bank’s form of Money Transfer Order. When this form is signed and marked with the red
stamp of the company, it becomes valid and legal to proceed payment. The documents
are then sent by fax-email to confirm with the bank that payment can be implemented.
The originals are then later sent to the office of the bank with the aim of saving
documents for government auditing. The whole process of paying by Telegraphic
Transfer only takes for more than one hour. As far as what the author knows, the amount
of money paying for these shipments mostly come from loans of the bank. Therefore,
while the author prepared for documents of the international payment step, the
Accounting Department also prepare documents for domestic loan with the bank.
2.3. Comparison in the process between importing Precious metal salts and
importing other goods of Kim Thinh:
The process of importing in Kim Thinh is classified in two categories which is by
air and by sea. Transportation by air is particular for only precious metal salts or other
valuable and light commodities while transporting by sea is for other commodities. The
two processes are distinctive in some aspects as mentioned below:
As what the author has mentioned in Step two, the Logistic Department shall
contact a third party which is a forwarding agent in case of airway. However, to be
specific, in case of importing or exporting the non-ferrous metals which are Aluminum,
Zinc, Gavalume, etc, the Logistic Department of the company will do on their own
without referring other forwarders. The reason is that Precious metal fields even have the
same percentage in turnover with other fields but are low in the number of orders.
Therefore, the Logistic Department doesn’t concentrate in specializing in the supply
chain for airways but only the seaway since the number of shipments by sea normally
ranges from three to four shipments per day. As a result, to save cost and human
resources, the Logistic Department suggested outsourcing the forwarding company
specifically for Airway Order which is Precious metal salts.
which are Letter of Credit (L/C), Document against Payment (D/P), Telegraphic Transfer
before receiving the goods. Despite the good business relationship with suppliers, it is
still reasonable to apply this kind of payment in other business fields of Kim Thinh which
is importing and exporting non-ferrous metal since this kind of goods are transported by
sea. The period of shipment normally ranges from 8 days for the shortest to 40 days for
the longest depending on the port of loading. Therefore, TTR after receiving the goods is
unwilling to be allowed, while other terms of payment allow the Seller to receive the
remittance after sending the goods from five to ten days, which depends on the
presentation of the Seller for original documents, especially Ocean Bill of Lading. When
these documents are presented with the banks correctly and receiving acceptance from
the Buyer, the payment must be proceeded.
2.4.1. Strengths
By obtaining the following strengths, Kim Thinh has been able to gradually
improve and standardize the business performance in general and the importing
procedures particularly.
Technology
Technology contributes significantly to facilitate the company system thoroughly
and foreign trade activities accordingly. In fact, when mentioning technology as one of
the strengths that Kim Thinh may obtain, it is not proper to classify here. However, the
author considered that it is the strength of Kim Thinh when it recognized and set the
priority for the importance of technology even though the technology is purchased from
other sources. Hence, the company established its own internal network, any necessary
and confidential information are shared strictly and particularly among related
departments. To be more specific, the Logistic Department can share the same folder of
any information required by the Import- Export Department such as Custom Declaration
forms, but not be able to share the information such as Transport VAT Invoice or the
Precursor Chemicals Licenses. Thus, appropriate sharing and mutual cooperation
between Departments can reduce the interruptions and maximize the efficiency especially
when issues arise unexpectedly and need for prompt solvement.
26
Flexibility
This is one of the general strengths of small enterprises. They can flexibly adapt
with any changes of the external environment or internal issues. For instance, external
factors such as the application of new Decrees and government laws on import or
exporting or international law on Certificate of Origin, which is the basic for preferential
tax rate, changes all the time. Other significant factors to be mentioned must be the
demand of the market, when any changes happen, Kim Thinh can discuss and alter with
suitable strategies immediately. It is necessary for any enterprises to promptly train and
acknowledge new information and knowledge in a short period of time. Therefore, with
the small size of each Department, the alteration is implemented successfully and
effectively. Moreover, the flexibility that the author mentioned here is also the flexibility
in one Department. As Kim Thinh is a small-scale company, the work range of each staff
is much higher than bigger enterprises which they may separate work range more
distinctively. For that reason, when there are any difficulties or issues arised, they can
flexibly deal with it.
Standardized procedures
27
Chapter 2 explains the importing procedure in detail by both graph and words.
Those are the most basic and standard steps that the Company has been following
through years of operation. Furthermore, with several strengths coming from
technology, awareness, flexibility, and standardization, the Company is able to enhance
their competitiveness and productivity through the years. Their good relationships with
Suppliers are bringing them many attractive and preferential offers. However, there are
still some weaknesses preventing them from further and faster development. Notably, it is
the limited human resources and improper human resources arrangement in the
Company.
30
3.1.1. Opportunities
Firstly, the most significant opportunity arises from the active participation of
Vietnam in world organizations. As of September 2020, Vietnam has had 13 FTAs (Free
Trade Agreement) in validity and 3 FTAs in negotiating so far. These Free trade
Agreements have helped Vietnam to gain numerous opportunities in developing
exporting and importing markets between Vietnam and other countries. In terms of the
business field of Kim Thinh at the moment, only importing and exporting aluminum are
applied to the tax duty of 10 percent, but due to the validity of these FTAs which are
ACFTA, AFTA, AKFTA, VJEPA, AIFTA, AANZFTA, EVFTA, CPTPP, all
commodities trading in Kim Thinh which are imported from China, India, Malaysia,
Korea, Australia, Japan, Peru, etc. can have the preferential tax rate of 0 percent. In
compliance with WTO and these Free Trade Agreements, reduction in tariff which also
leads to the reduction in cost and price for output supply, has become a significantly
influencing factor to encourage Kim Thinh to sharply increase the importing and
exporting activities and develop themself in the upcoming years.
Secondly, we have to mention the supportive and positive changes of the Vietnam
government for the whole economics in general and with the metal trading activities in
specific along with other changes in policy and advanced technology and economics
31
strategies. With the changes in world economics every day, the government has always
tried their best to revise, reform, improve, and complete the regulations relevantly,
simplify administrative procedures and enhance the business environment, speed up the
organizational restructuring, and actively serve domestic enterprises and habitants.
Moreover, when joining in world organizations, it is a great chance for Vietnamese
enterprises to acknowledge the advanced technology from other member countries and
apply for themselves. The more barriers are eliminated in economics, the more
enthusiastic and active domestic enterprise in general and Kim Thinh in particular
becomes.
Last but not least, interest rate and other financial factors such as exchange rate,
and payment terms at the moment in the international and Vietnamese market also create
a potential opportunity for Kim Thinh and also for other enterprises. The interest rate
after the peak of Covid-19 has been decreased with an aim to recover from the epidemic.
Exchange rate of United Dollars and Vietnamese Dong has also decreased accordingly
and significantly. This is a crucial advantage for those bank loans of Kim Thinh to settle
the payments at the moment. Besides, the application and changes in Letter of credit
regulations such as L/C UPAS - Letter of Credit Usance but paid at sight, also offers Kim
Thinh a favorite advantage in interest and loan.
3.1.2. Threats
To begin with, the fact that Vietnam is willing to open for foreign investors brings
both advantages and disadvantages, especially a new challenge of competition.
Obviously, Free trade in FTAs offers new markets to access opportunities, but in the
meanwhile, it may put pressure on the domestic market when foreign companies may
enter. Furthermore, the supportive business environment would also attract more and
more new businesses to enter the industry, making the market more and more intensive
than ever. The competition between companies on product price as well as preferential
policies to attract customers has caused many difficulties for businesses that want to
stand firm in the market. Without planning an effective strategy for input and output
distribution, Kim Thinh could have faced real challenges against local competitors and
new competitors.
Secondly, the current situation all over the world this year with the outbreak of
Coronavirus has extremely affected the economics in a large range and economic
recession seems to just begin. The Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its global
reach and impact, posing formidable challenges. On the supply side, infections reduce
labor supply and productivity, while lockdowns, business closures, and social distancing
also cause supply disruptions. On the demand side, layoffs and the loss of income due to
quarantines, and unemployment worsened the economic prospects , household
consumption and firms’ investment. Nevertheless, looking on the bright side when
economies all over the world, especially developed countries, have started to recover,
even with the highest speed ever before the previous economic crisis in the past.
33
3.2. Orientation
In terms of orientation for Import procedures, the company orientation in following
years is to proactively recruit additional employees, especially for the Import- export
Department. Moreover, allocating appropriate tasks to workers depending on items is the
future step of the Company, one particular staff will be wholly in charge of some specific
items for better management and surveillance.
In terms of Market expansion, Kim Thinh has outlined their business strategies both
in input supply and output demand for the next two years. Firstly, in the input supply,
Kim Thinh will expand their suppliers, and the types of imported goods, they are still
non-ferrous metal and precious metals but in different brands. Secondly, in the output
supply, they will remain the domestic market stable and constant in 2021 as the effect of
Covid-19 would be aggressively negative to the market at the moment. Meanwhile, they
will expand into Southeast Asia for exportation instead of domestic as export duty tax
appl. However, in the far future, they will increase the percentage of market share
gradually.
34
Simultaneously, the Board of Director intends to have a training course for the
Logistics Department to acknowledge and gain experience in the Air transport fields. If
the Logistics Department can soon successfully have a firm background for Air transport
and apply it in the real cases, the company can minimize the cost of outsourced
forwarders and other external agencies.
In the past, the company did consider that marketing is important. However,
traditional and normal marketing is not helpful and applicable to the field the company is
35
working: metals. The company has to seek out customers themselves but not the
customer finds them through marketing. Nevertheless, with the development of Fourth
Industrial Revolution 4.0 and rapid changes in economic conditions everyday, the author
suggests that the company should enhance this issues by recruiting a digital marketing
officer in the Market Research department who will be in charge of marketing online to
improve the website and social channel by updating information, pictures, maximizing
market search tools on the Internet, participating in online payment gateways and
utilizing social networks. The current team in charge of this job is working fairly
efficiently in the Market Research Department, so there is no need to hire anymore. The
staff just need to be trained monthly to get access to new marketing methods and trends
as well as soft skills to support creativity. Then, they can transfer information and support
the Sales Department for final settlement and result.
At the above parts the author has mentioned, the company needs to enhance the
capability of all staff who get involved in the performance of import and export activities,
which is the main element for the development of the company. To implement this, the
Company should establish or sponsor classes and courses training import export
operations, customs formalities, international payment, customer relations as well as info
days displaying amendments in laws and regulations which influence the professional
operations of the Company, particularly tax modifications. Guiding activities should
occur in both short-term and long-term programs.
To conclude, the last Chapter is some of the considerate opportunities and threats
that Kim Thinh Trading Co., Ltd may have to face and deal with in the near future. Based
on them, the company outlines some oriented strategy and viewpoints to adapt with any
changes required to be made. In addition, the author suggests some overall
36
recommendations for the company on her viewpoints not only to enhance and improve
the import procedures of precious metal salt but also for other goods and the business
perform overall.
37
CONCLUSION
Trading precious metals salt depends largely on the fluctuation of gold price, or
rhodium price, and these prices are influenced by economic factors respectively.
Therefore, this kind of business field is not stable or regular in development, changes are
numerous and forced Kim Thinh to be firm and steady in such changes. Even though
precious metal industry faces many challenges and strict regulations for many years,
demand for these goods are continuously increasing about five percent per year. The
reasons for this development are their enhancing strengths, seizing opportunities at the
right moment, and always eliminating weaknesses for the best performance. Thus, with
11 years of established and growing, Kim Thinh Trading has recognized outstanding
achievements. The performance of trading precious metals salt, a potential business field,
has also been perfected and improved during such a long time of existence and
development of the Company. As a result, this process has several striking strengths such
as time and cost efficiency, high level of security and cooperation, and high technology.
Yet, such a process also contains inevitable limitations, including governments
regulations, price competitiveness. Thus, it is time for Kim Thinh to consider some
necessary remedies such as enlarging the distribution channels, recruiting potential
personnel, improving specialized expertise for the staffs more strictly.
Finally, the author would again send her sincere thanks to all staff members and her
mentors in Kim Thinh Trading Limited company and especially Ph.D Nguyen Thi Quynh
Nga for her support and guidance during the graduation internship report.
38
1
REFERENCES
1. Import- Export Department, ‘Kim Thinh Limited Company’s annual report’ in 2016
2. Import- Export Department, ‘Kim Thinh Limited Company’s annual report’ in 2017
3. Import- Export Department, ‘Kim Thinh Limited Company’s annual report’ in 2018
4. Import- Export Department, ‘Kim Thinh Limited Company’s annual report’ in 2019
5. Voxeu.org, (2020, “Economic consequences of Covid-19: A counterfactual multi-
country analysis”. Available at: https://voxeu.org/article/economic-consequences-
covid-19-multi-country-analysis
6. Do Minh Tri, (2018). “Opportunities and potentials of the Vietnamese gold jewelry
industry” [pdf]. Available at:
http://www.asiapacificpmc.com/appmc2018/presentation/24_Do_Minh_Phu.pdf
7. Hanoitimes.vn, (2020). “Vietnam gold prices hit all-time high amid Covid-19
resurgence”. Available at: http://hanoitimes.vn/vietnam-gold-prices-hit-all-time-
high-amid-covid-19-resurgence-313499.html
8. Tuoitrenews.vn, (2020). “COVID-19 sends Vietnam's gold price soaring to 8-yr
high”. Available at: https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20200222/covid19-sends-
vietnam-s-gold-price-soaring-to-8yr-high/53111.html
1
1
APPENDIXES
No. Name of Document
1 Business License for Trading restricted Chemicals in the Industrial sector
2 License of Precursor Chemicals
3 Sales Contract No. KT-MTS 044/20
4 Metalor Tax Invoice No. 95049056
5 Air Waybill
6 Custom Declaration Form
7 Arrival Notice
8 Transpeed VAT Invoice for Freight
9 Transpeed VAT Invoice for service fees
10 The screenshot of vnsw.gov.vn page