Vladimir Ivin, Deputy Head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, met today with a select group of members of Belgian-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce in Russia. The meeting was chaired by Oleg Prozorov, BLCC CEO, and covered the major goals which the Federal Customs Service is pursuing in its operation.
According to Mr Ivin, the priorities are a smooth and eventually paperless document flow, seamless e-communication with foreign customs authorities, other government agencies and businesses. The FCS has prepared its strategic development program for the next decade aiming to ensure a comprehensive digitalization of all customs procedures based on employment of neural networks, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning. It is intended to introduce a dual risk management system which will assess risks in respect of both entities and goods in on-line manner.
Smart customs clearance offices are an essential element of the strategy while its ultimate goal is designing a fully smart customs service, he said. In line with that, the FCS is also striving to make agreements with foreign customs authorities on mutual recognition of results of customs controls, seals and documents as no efficient and business-friendly customs functioning is reachable in a single country. All improvements and adjustments in operations of the FCS will be integrated with functioning of customs services of other member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union.
The Federal Customs Service executive noted willingness of numerous African, Asian and Latin American countries to improve multilateral cooperation of national customs authorities and enforce information exchange with Russia’s FCS. Similar messages are being received from some EU members also. E.g. there are some bilateral pilots with customs services of Italy, Finland, the Netherlands and Russia’s neighboring countries. But negotiations between Russia and the European Commission are going not so actively despite Russia’s openness to any cooperation formats.
A top priority for the FCS is communicating with national and international businesses, Vladimir Ivin stressed. Its Expert-Consultative Council runs a number of diverse ad hoc groups intended to solve day-to-day problems businesses may confront.