EU marks the perspectives of the Belarusian system of preliminary information on goods

Representatives of the custom services of the European Union pointed out to the perspective of the Belarusian custom service proposal to introduce a system of preliminary information on goods and vehicles moved via the Belarusian border and borders of other European Union Member States.

The Press Service of the State Customs Committee informed BelaPAN, representatives of EU customs services expressed interest in a more detailed elaboration on the issue following a presentation by the Chairman of the State Customs Committee Aleksandr Shpilevsky at a regular session of the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) held in Brussels ( Belgium) on 26-28 June this year.

The Head of the Customs Committee of Belarus also informed the participants that in order to increase the transit flow of goods, the country was working on elaboration of a modern customs infrastructure and telecommunication network of crossing points. He said that technologies in compliance with the WTO standards were introduced and that the national legal framework allowed for implementation of the principle of free transit to the full extent.

Mr. Shpilevsky said that, as a result, a sustainable trend of increasing volume of movement of transit goods via the Belarusian border was established. He stressed that the Belarusian Customs Service “is open for cooperation with both customs services of other countries and with business communities of foreign countries; it is prepared to provide services for the increased flow of transit transport and to guarantee efficient and quality services for goods moved through Belarusian customs border”.

In the course of his visit to Brussels, the Chairman of the BCC held a series of bilateral consultations with the heads of delegations – representatives of the customs services of the WTO member states as well as with the heads of structural bodies of the World Trade Organisation. In particular, he met with the Head of the Department for Institutional Development of the WTO, Lars Carlsson. Aleksandr Shpilevsky thanked him for the preparation of the visit of IT experts to Belarus, organized in order to carry out a comparative analysis of the IT systems of the customs bodies of Belarus and the EU Member States.

In his turn, Lars Carlsson promised to support the initiatives of the Belarusian side regarding the development of the legal framework for cooperation in the area of information exchange between the customs bodies of Belarus and the European Union countries, the Press Service reported.

Aleksandr Shpilevsky also met with the heads of the customs services of the CIS countries, Germany, Belgium, Turkey and a number of others. In particular, in a discussion with his German colleague, he discussed the possibility to sign an agreement between the Belarusian and the German government on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters.