Turkic Council attributes great importance to cooperation in the field of customs which is conceived as an instrument facilitating existing trade and economic relations among Member States. Thus, regular meetings of Heads of the Customs Administrations of the Member States are held regularly along with the meetings of Working Group on Customs Cooperation.
Fourth Meeting of the Turkic Council Working Group on Customs Cooperation and Third Meeting of the Heads of Customs Administrations with the participation of representatives of Member States was convened on 16-17 June 2014 in Shymkent, hosted by the Customs Control Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
During the meeting parties exchanged views findings and recommendations of the Report of the Working Group for the second stage of Caravanserai project and called to continue work on implementation of recommendations. They also underlined the importance of China for the realisation of the aims of Silk Road initiative and Caravanserai project and decided to closely cooperate with China under the Silk Road initiative.
Parties appreciating imperative of Authorised Economic Operators in facilitating import export procedures concluded the work done by Turkey and Kazakhstan in this direction.
It was also noted at the meeting that technical assistance for capacity building of customs administrations is important. Thus training seminars organised by parties will help member states to benefit from best practices available and share experience. First training seminar on risk management and Authorised Economic Operator is planned to be organised by Turkey by the end 2014.
Furthermore Member states agreed to analyse ways on improving efficiency of border control processing as well as to identify bottlenecks impeding facilitation of customs procedures at BCPs.
In conclusion Member States thanked Customs Control Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan and welcomed the offer of Kyrgyz Republic to hold the next Meeting of Heads of Customs Administration in Kyrgyzstan in 2015.
