Customs Union to develop interstate e-government

The Customs Union member states – Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan – will develop an interstate e-government. The matter was discussed at a session of the Advisory Committee on Customs Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). The session took place in Minsk on 20 February, BelTA has learnt.

In particular, Director of the Department for Customs Legislation and Law Enforcement Practice of the Eurasian Economic Commission Dmitry Nekrasov noted that the EEC’s initiative to draft the major guidelines for the “one-stop” principle in foreign trade regulations in the Customs Union/Single Economic Space was approved by all the Customs Union member states. “The major guidelines for the “one-stop” principle reflect the key principles and approaches to improving foreign trade and building up an efficient system of foreign trade regulations on the common territory. These efforts will facilitate electronic communication between the national “one-stop” principles,” he explained.

Dmitry Nekrasov informed that the guidelines for promoting the “one-stop” principle and the necessary documents to implement it have already been drafted. The work will be structured into several stages: approval by the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission, endorsement by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on the level of the heads of state, establishment of a working group from government officials responsible for the implementation of the national “one-stop” principles and having the necessary powers and resources; engaging specialists from the business community into the project. Finally, the draft project will be submitted to the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council for approval.

“Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are already working on the establishment of national “one-stop” principles. However, these principles should be harmonized and should complement each other within the framework of the Customs Union. The “one-stop” principles should develop in sync with integration processes in the Customs Union/Single Economic Space and the future Eurasian Economic Union,” Dmitry Nekrasov said.

Minister for Customs Cooperation at the Eurasian Economic Commission Vladimir Goshin stated that in order to liberalize mutual trade, the member states need to ease formalities for bona fide economic operators. The World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization are closely watching the progress in improving customs administration that is aimed to protect national economic interests.

“At the same time, the experience of the top 20 countries from the World Bank’s Doing Business report has showed that the improvement of customs administration alone is not enough to facilitate and boost the international trade,” Vladimir Goshin said. The requirements set by supervisory bodies, law enforcement and other agencies are overlapping, overwhelming and detrimental to efficient interaction between the state and business. Economic operators have to submit the same information to various agencies.

According to Vladimir Goshin, at present Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are working to accelerate and simplify information flows by providing services in an electronic format and facilitating information exchange between the government agencies and all economic operators.