President Ilham Aliyev has attended the opening of a new office building of the Nakhchivan City Customs Administration.

The Chief of the State Customs Committee of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Lt-Gen Asaf Mammadov, reported to President and Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the office building.

It was reported that the Nakhchivan City Customs Administration was established in 2001. Until recently it operated in an adapted building. The construction of the new office building of the Nakhchivan City Customs Administration began last year. It is fully fitted with modern equipment.

The shape of the three-storey building is reminiscent of a key that is reflected in the insignia of customs bodies.

There are offices, a server room, training rooms and an archive here. The 22 CCTV cameras in the rooms enable simultaneous monitoring of all the premises. The local assembly hall, meeting and conference rooms also meet modern requirements. The rooms, equipped with electronic whiteboards, projectors and other information technology facilities, are suited for conducting various international meetings, seminars and workshops. The office building houses a department to combat customs offences, a technical control department, statistics and IT departments.

It was noted that the complex, covering an area of four hectares, includes an office building, a freight line, a customs clearance building, a laboratory and a canine service. The freight line has a broad platform and two warehouses with a total area of 2,097 square meters. The warehouses are fitted with Rapiscan X-ray machines. The available computers enable control of the entire process directly from the center. The freight line also has two cold-storage warehouses each with a capacity of 5 tons to store goods requiring special storage conditions. In the courtyard of the administration there are scales meeting the latest requirements. There is a substation and a boiler on the premises.

The complex facilitates domestic and international traffic of transport vehicles which don’t have to enter the city now. It plays an important part in developing foreign trade, simplifying import and export procedures and improving the quality of the customs service in general.

The President was familiarized with the department for the registration of vehicles on the first floor. It was noted that vehicles would be registered using the “one window” principle. The department employs customs personnel, brokers, representatives of the State Traffic Police and the notary service. There is also a bank and a POS terminal here. The conditions available at the department allow people to complete the registration of a car in 20 minutes. This is highly important for people’s convenience and in terms of transparency. The special information stand helps people fill in and print out customs declarations, receive detailed information about the identification number of tax payments and regulatory acts in Azeri, English and Russian.

It was indicated that the department of customs clearance and control also meets modern requirements. To ensure efficiency and transparency, there is an electronic queuing system and an information kiosk to help determine the sequence of applicants.

Using the kiosk applicants declare and register their cargo electronically. This department also operates in accordance with the “one window” principle. Along with customs officials, services to citizens will be provided by brokers, employees of the veterinary, phyto-sanitary and quarantine services. The department is equipped with state-of-the-art technical control facilities. Some of the equipment is not yet available elsewhere in the South Caucasus. The units detecting narcotic and explosive substances, caches, the composition of metals and chemicals, radioactive leaks, examination tools and other modern equipment will enable employees of the Nakhchivan City Customs Administration to carry out their work at the highest level. The department of customs clearance and control has rooms for meetings, workshops and training sessions to improve knowledge on customs clearance.

President Ilham Aliyev reviewed the local laboratory.

It was noted that the new customs laboratory meets the highest standards. The two-storey building has departments where laboratory tests are conducted. There are also ancillary buildings. The first floor houses rooms on spectrometry, atomic absorption, sample preparation, biological seeding, incubation, microscopy, autoclaving and washing, chromatography, radiological, physical-chemical studies, and a microbiological laboratory. The first microbiology laboratory to identify genetically modified food in the South Caucasus has been set up here. The laboratories fitted with the equipment of leading companies from Europe and the United States have an international certificate.

It was noted that extensive landscaping had been carried out in the courtyard of the customs administration and green areas established.

Expressing his satisfaction with the work done at the Nakhchivan City Customs Administration, President Ilham Aliyev wished the staff every success.