Azerbaijan, Baku, April 19 / Trend M.Aliyev A.Akhundov /
The Azerbaijani Parliamentary committees on economic policy and legal policy and state building recommended a new draft Customs Code for the second parliamentary hearing.
The committees held a meeting, at which it was suggested to set the maximum period of consideration of appeals presented to the State Customs Committee (SCC) on the passage of the customs procedure at 30 days, develop a new list of prohibited national import and export goods, post this list on the border checkpoints, etc.
Based on the draft code, the term of customs clearance procedures should not exceed 15 days. But the document does not exclude the probability for extending this period if additional time is needed to gather a declaration for relevant documents and information.
State Customs Committee Head Aydin Aliyev said the Committee's Internal Security Inspection often investigates all appeals for a maximum period of one week.
"To date, the committee did not record a case of spoiling of confiscated goods, since we are interested in the reverse. Revenues from [such goods'] sales go to the committee's extra-budgetary funds. If a confiscated good is damaged, then this product was delivered to us in this way", Aliyev said.
He said this period maybe reduced or altered depending on the type of product.
The existing customs code was adopted in 1997.
Adopting the new customs code will create favorable conditions for strengthening the material and technical foundations of the customs system and customs infrastructure in accordance with modern requirements. It will increase state budget revenues and widely apply the measures for tariff and non-tariff regulation of export-import operations. It will also accelerate Azerbaijan's accession to the WTO and fully provide for automatic control in the customs system. Moreover, it will increase the efficiency of customs control, improve and develop the customs tariff policy, increase the role of customs in ensuring the economic security of the country, strengthen the fight against crimes in the area of customs, and increase the role of customs in socio-economic conditions.