Decisive measures taken by the government to combat the smuggling and innovation have already resulted in an increase in revenues from customs duties, in particular, in August they exceeded the target by UAH 2.34 billion, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said.

"If in May, when we said that it was our priority, there was a reduction in receipts of [tax payments]. Everyone paused, expecting us to change our minds or cave in. They stopped to shipping [commodities]. But when they all realized that we came here for the long haul, they immediately began to import goods and pay the fees. As of today we can say that in August Ukrainian customs saw an increase in revenues due to their work," he said, opening a Cabinet meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The target of customs receipts in August exceeded UAH 19 billion and actual revenue was more than UAH 21 billion.

Groysman said such innovations as a one-stop-shop service, and interregional customs were introduced as part of the reform of the State Fiscal Service.

He expressed the hope that one can soon see the results of changes by the work being done by mobile customs groups, which were launched to fight against smuggling.

The State Treasury said in August that the target figure in the budget was UAH 19.47 billion, while actual receipts of customs payments were UAH 21.73 billion, 21.7% up on August 2015.

In general, customs payments to the state budget in the first eight months amounted to UAH 145.52 billion, exceeding the plan by 5.5%, as well as the results of eight months in 2015 by 17.5%.

The budget target for September expects to UAH 20.29 billion, and actual receipts totaled UAH 17.01 billion by September 27.

State Fiscal Service head Roman Nasirov said that his agency aims to collect UAH 22-23 billion in customs receipts per month in the fourth quarter of 2016.