Customs Pros and Cons

21 September 2021

There were three women, two Anastasias and one Larisa, on the round table discussion platform “Customs and Checkpoints”. And the speakers were also predominantly women.

But the topics they raised were serious and demanded state-level solutions. For example, the representative from EY Russia Velyamina criticized transferring the load of control and verification by the customs department to the businessmen who are already bearing significant losses during the pandemic. She supported introducing electronic declaring, but added “it is necessary to lower the pressure of control on business”. In turn, Anna Fomicheva, who has worked in customs and logistics since 2008, stated: “The global transport collapse in the Chinese direction will not only result in a significant price rise for containers and shipments, but also in the need to redeem one’s place in line, since the average delivery time is currently 2-3 months, which does not please the shippers or the suppliers, especially the manufacturer’s of perishable products”.

The representative from the scientific community of Siberia Denis Sergeevich is confident that AI will help to optimise communication between customs agencies. “The automatic control system of emergencies needs additional software”, he asserts, stressing that customs emergencies have become more frequent recently and interfere with the smooth functioning of the information systems.

The last round table discussion speaker, the Director for Interaction with Authorities of OTLK ERA JSC, Larisa Korshunova, brought a positive note to the event. She provided information that OTLK ERA has been shipping cargo from Europe to China successfully for 5 years on a trouble-free operating railway. In 5 years, the company’s volume rose by 12 times, while in 2020, it became a breakthrough company for railway transportation. This situation became possible due to the “EAEU breakthrough customs code” adopted three years ago that she believes needs updating since it contradicts the Istanbul Convention. It is only too bad that there is a shortage of containers and borders. “We cross the entire way from Kaliningrad to China in 5-6 days, and then we wait at the Chinese border for just as many days”, she shares.