ASTANA – Trade between Kazakhstan and Turkey exceeded $1.5 billion in the first 10 months of 2017. The recent meeting of Kazakhstan’s State Revenues Committee and Turkish Ministry of Customs and Trade noted the significant potential to increase the indicators, as they negotiated the simplification of trade procedures to further tap into the expanding economic and political ties.
Focusing on increasing the efficiency of customs control, the sides briefed each other on the current customs legislation, which will enable aligning the national laws to simplify trade procedures.
Though the simplification of trade procedures has been addressed before, simplification of the work of competent economic operators responsible for external trade was raised for the first time, said Undersecretary of the Turkish Ministry of Customs and Trade Cenap Asci.
“It is the first time we are meeting to discuss the simplification of programmes of the competent economic bodies. This work consists of four stages. At first, we achieved agreement. Now it is the stage of negotiations. We had meetings under a similar format before within the TURKSOY Council framework. They dealt with economic and customs ties. And now we are exploring step by the step our further integration,” noted Asci.
Committee Deputy Chair Gosman Amrin said some economic operators were found violating the laws.
“Our Turkish colleagues had two periods of work of the competent economic operators. This is a high status ascribed by the state to trusted companies dealing with foreign economic trade. They had more than 2,000 such companies at the first stage, but some of them were breaching the laws and failed to work in a proper way. Their number eventually was reduced to 200. We had similar situation. We had 313 companies before 2015, but amidst the recent legislative amendments their number was also cut. And now we are negotiating the companies that are eligible to acquire the status,” said Amrin.
As part of the meeting, the sides also signed a protocol envisioning cooperation between education centres of the committee and the Turkish ministry. A memorandum establishing the joint customs committee is among the documents expected to be signed soon.
