A hundred representatives from more than 50 countries are in Georgia today to take part in a large-scale international customs conference – the first time Georgia has hosted the event.
Georgia’s Prime Mininster Irakli Garibashvili welcomed 100 representatives of 52 countries to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Tbilisi this morning when he opened the 2014 Conference of Customs Administrations of the World Custom’s Organization’s (WCO) Europe Region.
"The ongoing reforms in my country are oriented on creating a sustainable system and are focused on developing law-abiding business,” Garibashvili said.
Georgia has been a member of WCO since 1993. The country is currently actively involved in establishing and implementing the standards developed by the WCO, Garibashvili said.
He thanked the WCO representatives and regional customs administrations in Georgia for visiting "the old native European land” and wished them a successful conference.
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of initialing the Georgia – European Union Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit, due to be held in September in the UK.
He also noted Georgia needed to develop, deepen and strengthen existing trade relations with "all trading partners” and to settle relations with the Russian Federation using constructive dialogue.
"One of the guarantors for implementation of above the mentioned is the fair Customs Administration, which will be oriented by public welfare and safety, promotion of legal trade and providing fair administration of the revenue intended for financing the public sector,” Garibashvili said.
"The generator of the knowledge and experience of international customs is the WCO. Georgia has been a member of this organisation since 1993. Currently, we are actively involved in establishing and implementing the standards developed by the WCO. For successfully dealing with the challenges ahead of us, we need to reasonably use the various instruments developed by the WCO, which are important for the customs administrations of other countries as well,” he said.
At the conference, the Georgian Government signed an agreement titled ‘Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters between the Government of Georgia and the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan’.
The conference was organized by the WCO, State Customs Committee of Azeribaijan and the Georgian Revenue Service of the Finance Ministry.
The two-day event aimed to determine institutional development strategy and priorities of Customs Administration of European Region and to approve plans that help implement this.
Chairman of the WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya and WCO vice Chair of the European Region Aydin Aliyev attended today’s session. This is the first time Georgia has hosted this large-scaled customs conference.