Translated with AI
As part of the second meeting of the High-Level Working Group dedicated to the multimodal corridor "Tajikistan – Uzbekistan – Turkmenistan – Iran – Turkey (TUTIT) + China", a working seminar on the implementation of the international eTIR procedure was held in Dushanbe yesterday, the press service of the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Tajikistan reports.
The seminar, the purpose of which was to create a unified digital customs transit system based on the decisions of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), opened with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan, the Customs Service under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, the UNECE Transport Division, the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), as well as the EU and the OSCE.
The seminar discussed the following topics: “Practical introduction to eTIR (UNECE and IRU presentations); “Experience of Central Asian countries in applying customs transit”; “List of data for electronic transit declaration”; “Integration of national systems with the international eTIR platform”; “Conducting a test run of transportation using the eTIR environment”.
As Deputy Minister of Transport of Tajikistan Shoista Saidmurodzoda noted in her speech, Tajikistan highly appreciates the potential of eTIR as a tool to ensure maximum transparency and traceability of the movement of goods, as well as to speed up clearance procedures and reduce the administrative burden for carriers and control bodies.
“In this regard, we are interested in full-scale connection to the international eTIR system,” she emphasized.
During the seminar, representatives of customs services and other relevant agencies of Central Asia presented the current status of the application of the transit procedure and a list of required data for eTIR declarations. According to the Deputy Minister of Transport of the Republic of Tajikistan, this will be a good basis for comparing approaches, identifying common bottlenecks and developing practical recommendations for harmonizing procedures.
It should be noted that at the Baku Summit of Heads of State of the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA), held on November 24, 2023, the Roadmap for the Digitalization of Multimodal Data and Document Exchange along the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor was approved. Among the priorities of this document is the implementation of the eTIR international system as an element of seamless and secure digital transit between the countries of the region.
Speaking at the above-mentioned summit, the President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon noted: "We propose, within the framework of the SPECA Program, to intensify cooperation between the parties in the digitalization of multimodal exchange of data and documents on transit routes on regional transport corridors. We express our readiness to move to higher-quality interaction between our countries in the field of electronic commerce in order to protect the rights and interests of participants in this activity."
Let us recall that the Republic of Tajikistan is a party to the Customs Convention on the International Transport of Goods under Cover of TIR Carnets (TIR), and has also joined eCMR, an electronic consignment note system that is part of the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (CMR).
