Ukraine, Turkey could start exchanging customs information between ports by late 2012
Ukraine and Turkey plan by late 2012 to realize a pilot project on the exchange of customs information between the Ukrainian port in Yevpatoria and Zonguldak port in Turkey.
"Today we launched a pilot project. Two ports – one in Ukraine and another in Turkey – will start a pilot project of information exchange. After they demonstrate their effectiveness, we'll expand it to other ports. Today a list of the data that will be exchange during the project was agreed," Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine, Ihor Kaletnik, said at a briefing on Thursday.
He said that Turkey agreed with proposals of Ukraine in part of information transfer regarding the origin, weight and code of goods.
"The only issue that will not be disclosed is the characteristics of the goods cost. I would say that this is not the most important issue today if we have ID documents from Turkey that this information is true, and this allows us to accept goods at the declared price – at the price of contract, using the requirements of the Customs Code," he said.
He added that all information would be sent online before the cargo arrives in Ukraine or Turkey, which is before the customs clearance procedure.
"Turkish fleet registers [cargo], a vessel departs to Ukraine and the Ukrainian customs service has [already] obtained information, and vice versa," Kaletnik said.
He said that during the visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Istanbul, the sides agreed on the creation of working groups as a part of the customs bodies of the two countries, which within two weeks are to draw up all of the required technical conditions, and at present the groups are working on the documents.
"I think that they will finish and a next meeting will be held. We'll sign the agreement and go further," he said.
"This comprehensive talk process achieved almost no results in recent years. Information from Ukraine did not get to Turkey, and we had a large amount of Turkish goods arrive in Ukraine, while we were not able to obtain data for the effective implementation of customs procedures," Kaletnik said.
