VORONEZH. April 19 (Interfax-AVN) - High-ranking officials of the Russian Customs Committee central department and western regional border guard department started a meeting here on Friday, the press service of the Voronezh customs told Interfax- Military News Agency.
The meeting involves head of the central customs department Lieutenant General Alexander Zherikhov and head of the border guard department Major General Sergei Minakov. Officials of both customs and border guard agencies are looking for ways of closer and more effective cooperation.
Joint work on modernization of border guard and customs control carried out from 1998 to 2001 enabled both agencies to increase efficiency of state border protection and economic security maintenance on the Russian-Belarussian and Russian- Ukrainian straps of the border, the press service said.
At the same time, absence of coordinated legal acts regulating control over abidance by laws in relocation of cargo and vehicles across the border and conflicting articles of documents regulating checks of vehicles going across the border result in lack of coordination in maintaining control at checkpoints and low efficiency of joint operations, the press service said.
The Western border guard department prevented smuggling of RUB5m (USD160,359) worth of goods, mainly diesel fuel and foodstuffs, in the first quarter of 2002. The central customs department transferred RUB27bn (USD865.94m) to the federal budget in January to February this year.
Customs offices of the central department processed 103,000 customs declarations on cargo relocation in January and February 2002. They let through 81,500 automobiles, 137,700 trains and 16 planes. The number of automobiles grew 13.3 percent and number of trains 11 percent in comparison with the same period of 2001.