Customs reforms underway

Azerbaijan plans to introduce innovations in the customs field beginning from August in order to optimize customs control over the import and export operations.

Chairman of the State Customs Committee Aydin Aliyev said these innovations are aimed at ensuring more operative and more transparent customs clearance, as well as developing relations between government officials and entrepreneurs based on modern management principles.

In this regards, it is planned to construct green corridors, use the entry-exit system and a search system.

The corridors system facilitates the work of customs and simplifies the procedures for crossing the border customs control. The red corridor works with those who must declare their property, and the green corridor is created for the travelers, who do not have things with them, which are subject to declaring.

Aliyev further noted that global crisis and devaluation affected import and export operations.

"Overall, a rise was observed in the export of agricultural products on the background of slowdown in the trade turnover this year as compared to the previous one. This happens due to fall in imports and low oil prices,” Aliyev said during his televised interview on Tuesday (Region TV), Trend reported.

The volume of foreign trade operations of Azerbaijan decreased by 31.78 percent to $6.38 billion in January to May, 2016 compared to the same period of 2015. The country's imports made up $3.33 billion, or 18.19 percent less than an index of January-May of 2015. The volume of exports amounted to $3.05 billion (decrease of 42.26 percent for the year). Thus, the foreign trade operations have ended with $281.47 million in red in that period.