Tuzmen: We Will Implement Best System In Customs

ANKARA - State Minister Kursat Tuzmen said on Sunday that they would implement the best system in customs, adding that ''our customs will be the most difficult customs for illegal trade and the easiest customs for legal trade.''
Issuing a written statement, Tuzmen said that they launched great efforts to remove red-tape in customs and that 99.5 percent of foreign trade transactions were carried out automatically and 53 percent of them were undertaken in offices of companies which didn't need to come to customs anymore.
Tuzmen said that their principle in customs was to be the ''easiest'' customs in legal trade and to be the ''most difficult customs'' in illegal trade.
''We benefit from technology to prevent smuggling in customs. We reached important success in fight with drug smuggling with x-ray systems which we started to set up in border gates to prevent illegal trade,'' Tuzmen said.
Tuzmen pointed out that smuggled goods worth of 146 trillion liras were seized in the year 2002 and that amount of smuggled goods seized in customs as of the end of September, this year reached 269 trillion liras.
There was a rapid increase in the imports made to Far East countries, said Tuzmen, calling importers and exporters who faced difficulties in customs to apply to him.
(ÖŞ) 09.11.2003