BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept.15
By Fidan Babayeva –Trend:
Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan increase the competitiveness of transit corridors passing through the territory of the three countries, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.
On September 14, the heads of six working groups of the countries held a regular meeting in the format of a video conference.
At the event, Deputy Minister of Revenue and Customs of Afghanistan, Esa Qudrat, expressed his gratitude to the Azerbaijani side for preparing a roadmap on customs and border issues by the committee. He noted that the roadmap will be an important support in preparing a cooperation framework aimed at resolving the issues in all three countries.
The Afghan side put forward proposals on improving the roadmap-related customs infrastructure, accelerating customs operations, providing the customs service with the latest technologies, exchanging information between the customs services of the three countries, designing and modernizing dry ports, as well as creating TIR parks.
First Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee, Lieutenant-General of the Customs Service, Ismayil Huseynov, speaking at the meeting, informed the participants about the unified automated management system used by the committee for customs control.
"An agreement was signed between the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan and the State Customs Service of Turkmenistan on organizing a preliminary exchange of information on vehicles, and the signing of such a document with Afghanistan will contribute to measures taken in this area," Huseynov stressed.
He also noted that Azerbaijan has a preliminary mechanism for exchanging information with Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and Georgia.
At the event, the Turkmen side made proposals for the preparation of a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding or an action plan for an agreement and the creation of a permanent working group to carry out relevant tasks as well as the exchange of a list of initially prohibited goods.
During the meeting, a detailed exchange of opinions was held on the roadmap and an agreement was reached on issues that will be discussed at the next meeting.
Along with Huseynov and Qudrat, Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Service of Turkmenistan, Mukhammed Mukhammedov, and representatives of the relevant customs service structures of all the three countries also participated in the meeting.
