BULGARIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

BULPRO and TURKPRO signed a memorandum containing
measures to combat smuggling between the countries

On July 09, 2003 the council BULPRO at the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Turkish PRO committee TURKPRO signed a memorandum containing a series of measures concerning the border control on Kapitan Andreevo - Kapikule. It is distinguishing for all measures that they do not need major investments for their solution and will lead to increasing the goods turnover between Bulgaria and Turkey; decrease of the border crossing time; simplification of the border crossing procedures; decrease of customs fraud and smuggling; increase the budget income; decrease the corruption on the border crossings; significantly increase the transit through Bulgaria; facilitate the development of the border crossing infrastructure as well as the highways Orizovo-Kapitan Andreevo and the subsequent destinations Sofia-Nis, etc.

What is the single window payment?

This is an idea on which BULPRO works actively during the last two years. It means that the different kinds of border control such as desinfection, veterinary control, control performed by the Road Agency, truck weighting etc., would be performed without payment of fees with every border agency at the point of control. Instead, they would only note on a paper body on electronicly the execution of the control. After passing the border crossing and all necessary controls, the due fees would be collected at once. This simple measure means the end of the multiple payments, money exchange at disadvantageous rates, the issuing of fake documents and reducing the budget income.

Less than a month ago, the Border Police started an experiment on Kapitan Andreevo and Kulata to pilot the Unified Fiche. The pilot aims at gathering sufficient information on the timing of each kind of control and the cash flows. Following the pilot, analysis shall be performed to enable the implementation of a single payment at one window at the end of the border crossing.

BULPRO proposed monitoring, a quick and inexpensive software solution for finishing the works on the electronic implementation of the single payment window and a pilot under BULPRO supervision on Kapitan Andreevo.

What is the truck weight certificate?

Back in 1999, the Ministers of Transport in Southeast Europe signed a Memorandum of understanding on facilitation of the international goods transport in Southeast Europe. It was published in State Gazette 80/1999.

The aim of this memorandum is, with the active participation of the PRO committees, to implement the document called Truck weight certificate. The holders of this certificate that perform transit through the Balkans would not be weighted twice on each border and lose time. The weighting should become an exception and be selective. At present, the weighting means spending of time and loss of funds. BULPRO has a clear and simple solution of this issue and is ready to offer it to the Ministries of Regional development and public works and of Transport.

What is the website www.ttfse.org ?

With the support of the US Government and the World Bank, on this site information is being published in English language concerning the above issues and all other problems of trade and transport facilitation in the SEE countries. BULPRO is administering this website. The Ministries have signed a Memorandum for continuous provision of information . The website is dedicated to create transparency and catalyse the processes of transforming the economic environment in SEE as a whole and in each single country in the region.

What has been done so far?

As it was mentioned above, the implementation of these measures does not require big investments but only the political will of the Bulgarian Government and the other countries in the region. The Bulgarian Government could even implement them unilaterally to give a positive example.

Following this philosophy, BULPRO worked actively together with the Customs Agency to limit the smuggling and the customs frauds. Within less than a year, four meetings with participants of the Customs Agency, Crown Agents and the Councellor of the Prime Minster have been organised - three in Sofia and one in Rousse - resulting in the identification of the problems. These problems were also discussed during two meetings between Bulgarian and Turkish customs and during the bilateral meeting TURKPRO-BULPRO held on July, 3.

An important deadline in the Memorandum BULPRO - TURKPRO is August 30, 2003. After this date, no more imports will be permitted to Bulgaria without presenting of conformant trade documents. To avoid their faking and the reduction of the declared customs value, the trade documents have to be endorsed by the respective Chamber of Commerce and Industry that will also send electronically information to the Customs. This measure is targeted at importers of small cargoes from Turkey. The sectorial associations of the light industry were present at the signing of the memorandum and support it.

The memorandum signed between TURKPRO and BULPRO is a prerequisite but not an universal solution for resolving the border crossing problems. This is why we hope that with the efforts of all - administration, associations and media - an attempt will be made at resolving the issues arisen therein, in favour of the Bulgarian business and economy.

14 July 2003