TIRANA – The customs administration is getting ready to be part of EU integrated tariff management system (SMTI). Customs directorate general and EU delegation in Albania organized on Thursday the opening ceremony of the twinning project implemented by Albania and Italy, ATA reports.
It will be the Italian Customs and Monopoly Agency that will support Albania in developing its national systems to connect with the EU information technology systems known as TARIC.
TARIC, the integrated Tariff of the European Union, is a multilingual database which integrates all measures relating to EU customs tariff, commercial and agricultural legislation. By integrating and coding these measures, the TARIC secures their uniform application by all Member States and gives all economic operators a clear view of all measures to be undertaken when importing into the EU or exporting goods from the EU.
It also makes it possible to collect EU-wide statistics for the measures concerned.
The TARIC is a multilingual database, which summarizes all measures relating to customs duties and EU trade and agricultural legislation.
What the economic operators benefit is full transparency of all measures uniformly applied in the case of import and export of goods. In the next two years, EU expertise and Italy’s know-how will support the Albanian customs administration in upgrading the legislation and tariff procedures in line with European Union standards.
The project worth EUR 1.8 million is structured around three main components, review of Albanian customs legislation on SMTI-EU issues, adaptation of the Albanian customs information system in order to allow for full interaction with the EU, as well as improving the organization, training and communication of Albanian customs in this field.
The head of Operations at EU Delegation in Albania, Stephen Stork, put the emphasis on expanding the role of customs administration beyond collection of revenues.
Customs office implements the rule on environmental protection, health and safety of citizens refusing the entry of hazardous or fake goods, on top of all e-systems enhance transparency and accelerate customs clearance in import to the benefit of entire business community,” according to Stork.
For his part, Vice Minister of Finance, Ervin Mete highlighted the importance of this twinning project as a step forward in preparation of Albania in the field of trade. “This is a message to EU partners because the volumes of goods exchanged between EU and Albania are increasing at high rates and in consequence the companies demand streamlined customs procedures to conduct their activity,” according to Mete.