Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 7
By Temkin Jafarov - Trend:
A new agreement must be signed to expand the cooperation between Iran and Azerbaijan in the field of customs, deputy chief for international issues of Iran's Customs Service Ahad Paraham told Trend on Aug. 7.
"The parties agreed to sign this agreement in the near future," he added.
"The recent agreement on customs cooperation between the two countries was signed in 2002," he said.
"We want to update an existing agreement in accordance with the requirements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 2014," he stressed.
He added that Azerbaijan and Iran are aimed at enhancing cooperation in the field of e-customs that will be reflected in the new document.
"Together with Azerbaijan we want to apply a "single interface" system," he added. "An agreement was reached for the statistics agencies of Azerbaijan and Iran to hold talks as part of organizing a single interface."
He added that as a result of using this system, all the documentation or declarations adopted by the Azerbaijani customs, will be recognized by the Iranian side, and vice versa. This will greatly simplify the cargo transportation.
At present, the parties have agreed on a 24-hour operation of the Bilasuvar border crossing customs point.
"The Astara border checkpoint will operate in the same manner in the near future," he added.