Significant steps will be taken to facilitate transit carriage between European countries and Azerbaijan

Caspian Energy (CE): Which changes were made in the work of the customs system last year?

Colonel-General Safar Mehdiyev, Chairman of the State Customs Committee: Important measures were taken in 2019 to increase transparency and accountability level, promote legal trade and improve business environment. 

Implementation of the Green Corridor gating system was commenced in accordance with the relevant order signed by President Ilham Aliyev late in 2018. 

This is a project that changed the customs control  philosophy for the country’s business sector and brought an understanding of the culture of voluntary adherence to our thinking. With this, the customs service has shown that if a business entity is our reliable partner, we, in turn, will create conditions for more intensive and higher cargo traffic, removing all barriers of control. 

According to preliminary estimates, millions of funds were saved as a result of sending vehicles of the Green Corridor participants, who became reliable partners of the customs in 2019, directly to cargo warehouses rather than terminals.Thus, a contact with a customs officer was excluded and the right to unload goods was passed to the Green Corridor participants. 

The introduction of the Green Corridor in the exports sector was an important step towards facilitating trade in the country’s non-oil sector. In 2019, 62.5% of agricultural and food products exported from the country were shipped by the Green Corridor system, and the time spent on customs clearance often made several minutes, given the fact that they were perishable products.

In this case, a declaration was filled in at an entrepreneur’s office or elsewhere, and submitted to the customs body in electronic format, whereupon customs clearance was completed if everything complied with the risk management system. 

According to the rules of using the Green Corridor gating system by foreign trade participants, approved by the Azerbaijan Republic President’s order #427 dated 21 December 2018, 599 foreign trade participants have applied to the Customs Committee. Of them, 530 foreign trade participants have got a permanent access to the Green Corridor system.