The Federal Customs Service of Russia will improve the green corridor project
Since 2007, the Federal Customs Service of Russia has been implementing a “green corridor” project. During this time, the program has shown excellent results, and the approach is regularly enhanced to improve its quality.
The green corridor, like the simplified customs corridor, is designed to simplify control by the service. Now every participant of foreign economic activity can promptly communicate with state agencies of other countries. The exchange of information takes place in minimal time without bothersome documentation procedures.
Now the Federal Customs Service interacts under the program with 14 countries, including India, China, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and others. During 2020-2021 the biggest activity in this direction was seen with Turkey and China.
Last year, about 382 thousand tons of goods were imported from the territory of Turkey to Russia through the simplified system of customs corridor, which were recorded in 16 thousand declarations for goods. In 2021 more than 78 thousand tons on 3 thousand declarations were brought from this country to Russia. The green corridor, created with China, in 2020, made it possible to facilitate the import of 9.5 thousand tons of goods, for which 166 declarations were issued. This year, 614 tons were imported with 6 declarations.
However, large-scale digitalization and the associated customs reforms have reduced the effectiveness of the use of green corridors. The fact is that electronic document management and automation of goods clearance processes are used by the service, regardless of participation in special projects.
Thanks to the introduction of digitalization, customs processes have been brought to a new level, and the quality of the services provided has improved significantly. It takes no more than 1.5 hours to issue a risk-free declaration for imports, and only 30-35 minutes for exports. In addition, more than 20% of all import documentation and about 40% of export declarations are generated automatically, without the intervention of a customs inspector. Therefore, if earlier this approach was considered an advantage of only green corridors, now all participants of foreign economic activity receive such services.
However, the FCS is not going to abandon the project “green corridor” and now service specialists are studying the possibility of modernizing the program, the introduction of new services, which will strengthen international customs relations, and will be useful to both sides. Separate attention will be directed to approaches to simplify business, and the system of participation in the green corridor will become more flexible.
The project is still under development, but the Customs Service hopes to launch the updated system in the near future.
