ST.PETERSBURG. Feb 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Railway checkpoints of Russia's northwestern borders do not meet customs requirements, a source in the Northwestern department of the State Customs Committee told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
According to him, participants in a conference chaired by chief of the department Vladimir Vyunov said that none of the 13 railway checkpoints on Russia's northwestern borders fully meet requirements of customs bodies.
Customs bodies claim that railway checkpoints have the poorest equipment of all Russian checkpoints.
Even the Buslovskaya terminal, the largest one on the border between Russia and the European Union, does not meet customs requirement fully. It has no roofed pads for examining carriages, pads for storing detained or overweight containers, a temporary storage building, a carriage balance, assets for controlling the volume of oil products, other necessary facilities and assets, which badly impedes customs clearance of goods, the source said.
The Northwestern department considered projects of railway checkpoint reconstruction on the Russian-Finnish border over the past two years. Reconstruction of the Svetogorsk terminal is to be completed in 2004, the source said.
According to the department command, an increase in volumes of foreign trade requires an increase in the capacity of checkpoints and a reduction of customs clearance time.