“International Customs Forum 2018” took place on October 24-25

“International Customs Forum 2018” is a customs event held on October 24–25 and dedicated to the annual celebration of Customs Day. This year, for the first time, participants in the forum included not only the customs authorities of the CIS countries, but also interstate customs and foreign economic organizations.

The business program of the forum touched upon a number of topical issues of interaction between government authorities, customs organizations and companies participating in foreign economic activity.

One of the events that opened the forum program on October 24 was the panel session “Current issues in the collection of customs and other payments,” organized by the Main Directorate of Federal Customs Revenue and Tariff Regulation of the Federal Customs Service of Russia. The session was divided into three main blocks and touched on the most pressing issues for business: the latest changes in the activities of customs representatives, technologies for ensuring the fulfillment of obligations to pay customs duties, the main aspects of debt collection for customs duties. Within each of the blocks, Elena Yagodkina, head of the GUFTDiTR, made a report, discussing all the business issues of concern with the practicing companies in the format of a dialogue.

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Dmitry Medvedev took part in the plenary session of the forum “Customs of the future is being created today.”

Speech by Dmitry Medvedev at the opening ceremony of the Volga Electronic Customs

Speech by Dmitry Medvedev at the plenary session of the forum

Opening of the Volga electronic customs office via video conference

October 24, 2018

Opening of the Volga electronic customs office via video conference

October 24, 2018

Presentation of the electronic declaration process

October 24, 2018

Speech at the plenary session of the forum

October 24, 2018
Opening of the Volga electronic customs office via video conference

Before speaking at the plenary session of the forum, Dmitry Medvedev took part in the opening ceremony of the Volga electronic customs office via video conference.

Volga Electronic Customs (PET) is one of 16 electronic declaration centers that are being created in accordance with the Comprehensive Development Program of the Federal Customs Service for 2018–2020. This is the first customs office of the new format in Russia.

The competence of PET includes the reception and registration of electronic declarations for goods and electronic documents, making decisions on the release of goods on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Electronic Declaration Center will interact with customs offices of actual control, exchanging information with them in electronic form.

The volume of the daily PET declaration array is 1–1.2 thousand customs declarations. Since the beginning of 2021, the customs authorities of the Volga region have issued almost 270 thousand declarations for goods. More than 40% of customs declarations are issued using a risk management system.

The uniformity of customs operations, their transfer to digital format and automation of the most important of them - registration and issuance of customs declarations - will significantly speed up and simplify customs clearance when moving foreign trade cargo, and will reduce the influence of subjective factors on decision-making during customs control.

The International Customs Forum is being held on October 24–25, 2018 for the first time and is the successor to the international exhibition “Customs Service”, held since 2000 and traditionally dedicated to the celebration of Customs Day of the Russian Federation (October 25).

The forum is attended by representatives of the customs services of the CIS countries, interstate customs and foreign economic organizations, including the World Customs Organization, BRICS, JETRO, the Association of European Businesses and others.

The forum features an expanded exposition, in which key companies - importers and exporters, executive authorities of the Russian Federation, and customs organizations take part.

The forum is designed to facilitate the free exchange of information and opinions, as well as the development of measures to overcome crisis situations and establish the further direction of development of customs and related industries.

The main objectives of the forum are the development of international and regional cooperation of customs services, demonstration of the achievements of Russian customs and the results of the development of public-private partnerships in the customs sector, as well as the activation of business activities and the commercialization of technologies.

Speech by Dmitry Medvedev at the opening ceremony of the Volga Electronic Customs:

Opening of the Volga electronic customs office via video conference. With the head of the Federal Customs Service Vladimir Bulavin

Dear Colleagues! I congratulate you on the launch of electronic declaration in the Volga Federal District. The most important thing is that transformations are underway in the customs clearance system, the activities of the customs system as a whole are being transformed. This is not just a call of the hour, we are doing this to ensure that customs procedures are clear, fast, open and transparent, in order to help bona fide businesses and our citizens go through all customs clearance and customs declaration procedures properly. I hope that all this will improve the level of service and make it more convenient for citizens of our country and companies to solve all the problems that fall within the competence of our customs service. I cordially congratulate everyone on this event and, of course, congratulate you on the holiday that will be celebrated tomorrow.

Speech by Dmitry Medvedev at the plenary session of the forum:

Speech at the plenary session of the forum

Good afternoon, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen! I cordially welcome you to the International Customs Forum, which is being held in this capacity for the first time; before that, an exhibition was held. This is a new format of work, interesting, we are expanding the boundaries of cooperation. I hope that the forum will become an effective platform for the exchange of experience, ideas and simply to get to know each other better - I mean international cooperation - to make friends and solve big economic problems together.

The opening time coincided with the upcoming professional holiday of employees of our Federal Customs Service. First of all, I would like to cordially congratulate you on this date. Customs authorities are one of the few in our country that count down their activities and celebrate an event that happened back in pre-Petrine times. We don't have many such structures.

Over the 27 years of the modern history of customs, you have achieved great success and proven your ability to respond to the most difficult situations. Russian customs has become not only more modern, but in terms of equipment, its tools, and digital advancement, it is comparable to the most advanced customs structures in the world. The results of your work also influenced the World Bank assessment, which we quite often use, I mean Doing Business. In this sense, the reduction of financial and time costs during customs procedures did not go unnoticed. The main thing, of course, is not the ratings (this is all important, but not so important), but how declarants – ordinary companies, ordinary citizens – feel the changes in the activities of customs structures, because for their sake these procedures are being simplified and becoming more modern.

Thanks to your work, budget revenues are certainly growing. In just nine months of this year, the treasury received more than 4 trillion rubles in customs payments. This is a very significant number.

Thank you all again - everyone who is in this room, and everyone who is now on duty.

However, we cannot rest on our laurels. The customs of the future is truly being created today. We have just launched the country's first e-customs. She will work in the Volga region. Naturally, other districts expect the same. This is one of 16 electronic declaration centers. Almost the entire volume of declarations will be processed by the new electronic system. Now we watched with Vladimir Ivanovich (V. Bulavin)

presentation on how it all works. This, to be honest, is impressive, especially compared to what we had quite recently, some 10 years ago. I am sure that everyone will benefit – both the state and business, since electronic customs and a significant simplification of administrative rules will make procedures more open, more transparent and, therefore, faster.

At the plenary meeting today, key issues are being discussed: how customs will develop, what priority tasks need to be solved, how to create more favorable conditions, including for supplies for the export of non-commodity goods.

It is clear that the overall picture is changing rapidly. Since this year, customs has been living under new rules. The new Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union, which is based on international best practices, has entered into force. Our partners in the Eurasian Union and I spent a lot of energy discussing its text. It wasn't easy. They consolidated their positions. But in the end it was possible to do it. The Code has completely unified the procedure for the import and export of goods from the five countries of the Eurasian Union. Creates barrier-free rules for doing business so that entrepreneurs do not waste time when carrying out customs procedures.

The time required for customs operations has been significantly reduced. Now, instead of one working day, registration will only take a few hours. And this is not the limit either. It is clear that as all these processes become digitalized, the processing time will become shorter.

Large-scale tasks lie ahead. You know that we are now striving to become one of the five largest economies in the world. To do this, we need to develop faster even than the global economy is growing, which is not easy.

In this, an important role is played by foreign trade, and primarily non-resource exports. In six years, we need to double its volume to $250 billion. The task is difficult, but on the whole, I think it can be solved.

For the second year already, exports have been growing at a good pace, including non-resource and non-energy exports.

We are seeing good numbers this year as well. In the first eight months, exports increased by almost a third to $286 billion. At the same time, the growth in exports of non-energy goods - which is especially valuable for us, and we always emphasize this - amounted to about 20%, if we take it year-on-year, compared to last year. This is largely due to the increase in prices for a number of goods - this should not be forgotten, but the government support that we provide within the framework of accepted national development goals also plays a significant role.

In order to expand the presence of Russian goods on world markets and stimulate further economic growth - this is the main task - we will continue to create favorable conditions. Within the framework of the national project “International Cooperation and Export” (this is one of the areas, one of the tasks that we solve, we recently approved it), financial and non-financial support measures have been identified. First of all, we are talking about such important issues, quite mundane, that you encounter every day, such as the creation of checkpoints across the state border. Over the next few years, 32 such checkpoints should be introduced. We will start with the Far East, the North Caucasus. This will expand the flow of goods transported in eastern and southern directions. This year, as I already said, electronic customs offices are appearing. Within two years, 9 electronic customs offices and 16 electronic declaration centers will be created. They will be “registered” at the Central Energy and Central Excise Customs, in the Far East, in St. Petersburg.

We need to form a system of production cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union in order to increase trade volumes. We intend to solve this problem within the framework of the Main Directions of Government Activities, which I recently approved.

We need, of course, to get rid of shadow circulation, gray and black imports. And although its volumes are no longer as significant as they were some time ago, it is still necessary to more actively bring all commodity and financial flows into the light. To do this, customs together with the Federal Tax Service need to create a unified mechanism for tracking the movement of goods along the entire route - from import across the customs border to a specific store. The task is not easy – we will, of course, solve it gradually – but it is extremely important. All countries are following this path.

The services will exchange information about how the goods are processed upon import, respectively, checking the country of origin, cost, weight parameters - up to the quantity - upon sale. Moreover, this mechanism will be end-to-end. Moreover, we already have some experience. You remember, we started with labeling fur products, because they are expensive and there are relatively few of them when compared with other types of goods. But even this then caused very extensive discussions with our partners in the Eurasian Union. It’s good that we agreed, now let’s see how it works. This “pilot” has already taken place. We also have an ongoing pilot project on drug labeling - this is generally a huge, vast, and extremely complex topic. Moreover, it is very important that this system not only traces the path of the goods, looks at its cost and other parameters that should be monitored by customs and the tax service. The most important thing for our citizens, for those who buy medicines, is to identify counterfeit medicines, to identify low-quality medicines, medicines that do not have the proper certificate, that are manufactured illegally.

This allows us to protect our consumers from problems.

Dear colleagues, it is obvious that today customs is definitely not a barrier to honest business. This is an effective service that uses world standards and protects the economic security of the country. And the business climate in the country, the building of trade relations with foreign partners, and the overall growth of the Russian economy largely depend on your activities.

I hope that you will continue to be able to properly cope with these responsibilities and will work at a high level.

Award ceremony. With the head of the Anti-Corruption Department of the Federal Customs Service Franz Avgustinovich

October 24, 2018

Award ceremony. With Tatyana Kalinina, head of the food products examination department of the Moscow forensic service

October 24, 2018
Award ceremony. With the head of the Anti-Corruption Department of the Federal Customs Service Franz Avgustinovich

Now I would like to move on to the most enjoyable part of today's meeting. I am pleased to note the merits of the entire highly professional team of our customs service. Once again I want to congratulate you on the holiday and I want to congratulate those who received state awards with these high distinctions, and wish you further success in your work.