The World Customs Organization with the support by Customs Cooperation Fund of Germany delivered a three-day SAFE AEO Workshop to the benefit of the State Customs Service of Azerbaijan Republic (SCC) at the WCO European Regional Office of Capacity Building in Baku from 11 to 13 June 2018.
In the opening ceremony, Mr. Asgar Abdulayev, Deputy Chairman of the SCC highlighted the importance of securing and facilitating trade, especially in the light their geographical situation. Azerbaijan is part of the ‘Silk Road’ and is an important transit country between Asia and Europe; this makes Azerbaijan an important pathway for the movement of goods. He continued by encouraging all the participants to actively partake in the discussions to ensure they have the full understanding of the requirements and benefits of the AEO Programme to be implemented by SCC. The AEO programme is envisaged to assist the Customs to not only secure and facilitate trade but to also provide the compliant private sector with benefits that would be financially profitable to them while providing simplified Customs formalities.
SCC has already put in place their legislation on AEO and are preparing all the other necessary and relevant documents for the implementation. A roadmap for the signing of MRA within the next 2 years was drawn-up by the participants as their way forward.
The capacity building activity concluded with a meeting with high-level officials, to discuss the roadmap and other possible assistance in the future.