Phytosanitary Certificate and Certificate of Origin for EXPORT of plant material from Thailand

[Tomtomtom69]

Hi,

Yesterday I attempted to import more than half a ton of planting material for a project of mine into Laos via the 1st Friendship Bridge. I have driven from Thailand to Laos across a number of crossings including the 1st Friendship Bridge with the same material many times without incident. Sometimes I was questioned by customs, but was on my way quickly, but today I got unlucky and 2 very by-the-book officials somehow trying to prove a point, although they were very friendly, decided to make things a bit difficult.

I used a friend's car who sent a driver since he wasn't available at the time I made the crossing. Originally, I was hoping he could take care of everything himself so I wouldn't need to enter Laos at all, but finally I decided to join at the insistence of my friend, who I ended up meeting last night. The driver's first mistake was parking the truck (pickup truck) near quarantine on the Lao side, rather than parking far away, getting all the car documents and passport stamps sorted out and then getting back into the car, away from the sight of officials. That's what I've done every time so far, but this driver was one of these know-it-all types. This probably wouldn't have happened if I had gone over to Laos to pickup the car myself, driven into Nong Khai to load the goods and then driven back into Laos. Another option would have been arriving late just before bridge closing time (say 9.30pm) when all the officials have gone home already and the cover of darkness would help to conceal the bags. Note that we're talking about plants that are grown in Laos too, but the species in Laos are of rather low quality and thus the Thai/Burmese species is preferable.

However, the Lao quarantine officials not only don't know these particular plants, but the driver's presence was detrimental to my whole case. For starters, I'm fluent in Thai (including reading and writing) and therefore also relatively fluent in Lao too (this includes reading Lao script) thus I could have handled everything myself very well as I've done in the past (when I would only have a Vietnamese friend with me who doesn't speak Thai or Lao). Secondly, the driver didn't mention the plant species properly, thus making the officials even more curious, finally they asked me to store the goods in their labs until 4 documents can be produced in order to have the goods released.

1. Certificate of Registration from the Department of Cultivated Plants (in Vientiane; possibly the same location as the Forestry Department/Ministry of Agriculture?)

2. Import certificate from the Forestry Department in Vientiane

3. Phytosanitary certificate from Thailand (actually the goods are originally from Myanmar, but they are the same species in Thailand and since I'm not going back to Myanmar for this, these goods will be declared as being of Thai origin)

4. Certificate of Origin (from Thailand)

The first 2 documents will be handled by my local partner in Vientiane.

The 3rd and 4th ones are my responsibility. Where can I get the phytosanitary certificate from? Ministry of Agriculture in Bangkok? Apparently, I could also get it from a quarantine office 1km before the Thai-Lao border in Nong Khai. I wasn't planning on going back there, but if I re-arrange my schedule I might just be able to squeeze it in.

I'm assuming the certificate of origin is available in the same location?

Also, since the goods are on the Lao side, I only have a small number of samples to show quarantine with the rest over in Laos. I'm assuming that showing a few samples is enough for the authorities to produce these 2 certificates.

All of this could have been avoided if the driver didn't screw up. Although any future shipments will probably be easily able to pass in future with a nod from quarantine, I will consider using smaller border crossings or having these goods shipped over by boat across the Mekong, rather than go by car on the bridge next time to avoid this. Although it's not going to cost much money for us this time, it is a great inconvenience - the officials were trying to tell me how it's not reasonable that Laos has been so lax on these kinds of matters compared to countries like Australia. Ha! Laos comparing itself to a great developed country like Australia when it comes to such things as quarantine matters is a long stretch - in this case these officials just wanted to make themselves look important.

Does anyone have any suggestions/direct experience here?

[dhream]

Hi Tomtomtom69,

I'm curious, how did this resolve?

I'm sorry no one helped you with your OP, but it is a little specialized as requests here go.

I myself am trying to track down how to get hold of similar (Thai Govt) documents, online, but a cursory search in English has been of little use.

My interest is I require these for timber (manufactured) exports.

I know an agent would easily handle it, but is there a website with images of what the forms look like, preferably English language versions? I want to use an image of the forms on a website, so i would much appreciate it if you have learned anything new about this, and how did it all pan out for you anyway?

Thanks, d.

[Michael Hare]

I have a lot of experience with both phyto certificates and certificates of origin. I run a small forage seed business based at Ubon Ratchathani University. We sell seeds to more than 20 countries. With every export we obtain a phyto certificate from the Ministry of Agriculture and a Cert of Origin from the Ministry of Commence in Bangkok. Everything is handled by our shipping company in Bangkok.

We also have seed producers in Laos which send the seed across the Nong Khai bridge (20-25 tonnes at a time) with all the above documentation that you mention. For the last two years, everything has got very strict at Nong Khai (and rightly so) and they are demanding certificates of Non GMO plus other information.

We also export seeds into Laos via Nong Khai and Mukdahan.

What I do is ship through a proper shipping company. I ship through a registered Thai shipping company and my Laos company sends seed to us through a registered Laos shipping company. They know what documents are required etc. They inform me and I supply the documents. Maybe there are a few under-the-table payments but they don't tell me but bill me later.

I believe it is not possible to obtain a proper phyto certificate at Nong Khai because the materials have to be inspected by Plant Quarantine Bangkok who follow the requirements according to the Import permit requirements of Laos. Therfore you must obtain an Import permit from Vientianne.

PM me if you want more information. What I can say is this. Before it was easy to import/export goods into and from Laos. But now it is not. And rightly so.

What is happening now is that the same rules that apply at International Airports and sea ports in and around Bangkok are beging applied to all land crossings into Thailand and from Thailand into Laos and Cambodia. I have no experience with Myanmar.

[Tomtomtom69]

Nong Khai is easy now that I have become good friends with the head of quarantine and know some of the other officials on both the Thai and Lao sides there. My issue got resolved one or two days after I posted the OP.

And yes they can normally do the certificates at the border. They were simply not happy about what happened at the time, but no problems issuing a phytosanitary certificate retroactively (for that shipment) or in future. Plant quarantine has a station in Nong Khai and they can do all the inspections there, no need or reason to deal with Bangkok which may have nothing to do with the shipment (unless you are sending the goods via air) and would be a logistical nightmare (plus very time consuming).

Cambodia is still easy going anywhere apart from Aranyaprathet/Poipet. Actually in January I imported some planting material from Vietnam (which in turn had originally come from Thailand 2 years earlier and I pointed out), customs simply wanted a small sample and let me go on my way. However, as I normally export from Thailand rather than import, I can't say how common an occurence this is. However, I did mention that the goods were in transit and indeed the next day I went to Vientiane via Nong Khai with those goods and there was no problem there either. All I know is that Aranyaprathet has become professional, unlike 2 years ago where Cambodians would load everything onto carts which was never inspected, nowadays all goods arriving into Thailand there are inspected by customs, though in the reverse direction nothing happens on the Cambodian side.

At Hat Lek/Koh Kong, inspections aren't very thorough, there is just one army guy there so a Cambodian cart guy could probably get through without much scrutiny.

At the Myanmar crossings, particularly Mae Sot where I have most experience nobody cares. Myanmar drivers simply drive goods across the border, and cars are rarely inspected except for a cursory glance. In any case, Thai customs officers there didn't even care when we mentioned what we were bringing in and showed a sample.

I can imagine that the smaller Lao crossings are the still the same as they have always been. Vientiane/Nong Khai is the most important crossing and while the other 3 bridge crossings are now likely to be similar, the smaller ones are probably not. So by heading to Nam Heuang from Tha Li rather than going to Vientiane directly, a lot of official procedures can be skipped.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Tomtomtom69

[Tomtomtom69]

I have a lot of experience with both phyto certificates and certificates of origin. I run a small forage seed business based at Ubon Ratchathani University. We sell seeds to more than 20 countries. With every export we obtain a phyto certificate from the Ministry of Agriculture and a Cert of Origin from the Ministry of Commence in Bangkok. Everything is handled by our shipping company in Bangkok.

We also have seed producers in Laos which send the seed across the Nong Khai bridge (20-25 tonnes at a time) with all the above documentation that you mention. For the last two years, everything has got very strict at Nong Khai (and rightly so) and they are demanding certificates of Non GMO plus other information.

We also export seeds into Laos via Nong Khai and Mukdahan.

What I do is ship through a proper shipping company. I ship through a registered Thai shipping company and my Laos company sends seed to us through a registered Laos shipping company. They know what documents are required etc. They inform me and I supply the documents. Maybe there are a few under-the-table payments but they don't tell me but bill me later.

I believe it is not possible to obtain a proper phyto certificate at Nong Khai because the materials have to be inspected by Plant Quarantine Bangkok who follow the requirements according to the Import permit requirements of Laos. Therfore you must obtain an Import permit from Vientianne.

PM me if you want more information. What I can say is this. Before it was easy to import/export goods into and from Laos. But now it is not. And rightly so.

What is happening now is that the same rules that apply at International Airports and sea ports in and around Bangkok are beging applied to all land crossings into Thailand and from Thailand into Laos and Cambodia. I have no experience with Myanmar.

One more thing - it appears you are exporting very large quantities of seed at any one time. This does make a difference. If I'm exporting half a ton or maybe close to a ton at most, using one or two private or hired pickup trucks that cross the border with the goods at the back it's usually a case of no documents required (at least so far, except of course that one incident last November!) but for 20-25 tons there's no way one can just show up without some kind of documents unless 10-20 smaller vehicles were used to separately bring everything in a few hours apart but I can imagine the costs associated with that would be far higher than doing things officially. All I know now is that handling things at the border has become quite straightforward for exporting from Thailand to Laos, but not the other way round due to bureaucratic hassles on the Lao side. But that's because Lao customs is far less developed compared to Thailand, which of course is a metaphor for basically every other process or thing that can be said about Laos compared to Thailand.

[David48]

Tomtomtom69 ... I have no assistance for your OP ... I just wished to say that I enjoyed reading your post.

[Tomtomtom69]

Tomtomtom69 ... I have no assistance for your OP ... I just wished to say that I enjoyed reading your post.

Well if you read my replies you would have figured out that while I had problems back when I wrote the OP back in November, they got resolved 1-2 days after I wrote the OP. So therefore everything has been fixed. But anyway, thanks for reading my post. I don't think it was an everyday experience for the average person!

Edited July 4, 2014 by Tomtomtom69