Azernews.Az

By Jamila Babayeva

Georgia and Azerbaijan are developing a single information system for customs checkpoints.

The news was announced by head of the Centre for Information Technology Services revenue Vakhtang Lashkaradze February 17.

The Center is the department that combines the functions of the tax and customs authorities of the Georgian Finance Ministry.

"Our department is actively cooperating with our Azerbaijani colleagues, particularly the State Customs Committee. We launched a test-mode information exchange system for imports and exports at the Red Bridge customs checkpoint and also the Sinig Korpu Customs checkpoint in Azerbaijan in early February," he told Trend. "A pilot project on the creation of a single customs post has also been launched."

He added that this measure will help save time significantly.

"Before a country sends out its goods, the relevant customs officials will promptly fill out the data and the customs authorities of a state will have all the information even before the goods arrive at that state," Lashkaradze noted.

He also said the Georgian side came up to speed with new software for operating such a system during a meeting with the Azerbaijani representatives of the State Customs Committee.

"Work on the unification of the forms and data collected by the Azerbaijani and Georgian customs officials is already 80 percent complete. Language is one of the challenges of this project, but this issue is also being resolved," he said. "In the case of the pilot project`s success, the same system will be launched at all customs points along the Azerbaijani-Georgian border."

"Tbilisi will host a meeting of European customs administration heads in March this year. We hope that work on the relevant agreement on the development of an information exchange system will be completed by this time and it can be signed in the framework of this event," a Georgian Finance Ministry representative said.

There are six operating customs posts subordinate to the Balakan and Tovuz customs offices between Azerbaijan and Georgia; Sadikhli, Sinig Korpu, Jandargol, Mazimchay, and Muganli automobile posts, and the Beyuk Kasik railway.

Azerbaijan is Georgia's second largest trade partner after Turkey. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Georgia was $1.35 billion in 2013, showing a 7.14 percent increase, the National Statistics Office of Georgia reported.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Georgia amounted to 1.26 billion dollars in 2012.