 23 June 2009 | In Geneva on 18 June 2009, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organized a seminar on the implementation of Annex 8 to the International Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Controls of Goods, 1982 (Harmonization Convention).
The Harmonization Convention establishes commonly agreed requirements for coordinated border management and reduction of border formalities as well as the number and duration of all types of border controls of goods. 53 countries and the European Community are Contracting Parties to this Convention. It is worth to be mentioned that all 12 BSEC Member States are parties to the Harmonization Convention.
In May 2008, a new Annex 8 to the Convention came into force. This annex deals with road transport, in recognition of the fact that the road transport industry should be considered as the main beneficiary of the facilitation measures set out in the Convention. New Annex 8 covers, inter alia, facilitation of visa procedures for professional drivers, standardized weighing operations and vehicle weight certificate, minimum infrastructure requirements for efficient border crossing points and provisions to monitor the border crossing performance.
The Seminar aimed at capacity building to ensure a more effective implementation of the Harmonization Convention and was designed both for government officials responsible for customs, transport and trade policies and representatives of transport industry: see Programme
During the Seminar presentations were made by experts from various governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as by representatives of countries and the UNECE secretariat. More details could be found in Presentations. |
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