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State Customs Broker May Lose Ground
The Russian government will discuss the performance of the Federal Customs Service today. A number of bodies, including the FSB and Transportation Ministry, favor creating a special agency to oversee the customs infrastructure. If that occurs, the federal state unitary enterprise ROSTEK will have to divide it up with the new agency. A government source said that this attention to the customs service was brought on by problems with corruption. A meeting of the Federal Customs Service collegium on July 3 was devoted to ROSTEK.
ROSTEK (Russian abbreviation for Russian Customs Economic Co.), which is celebrating its 15th anniversary, is made up of a head office and 46 regional subsidiaries. Its proceeds in 2006 were about 3 billion rubles, 17-percent growth over 2005. The company is engaged in customs brokering, freight expediting and related services. In 2006, ROSTEK worked with 7 regional customs departments, 81 customs clearing points, 99 road customs checkpoints and 17 railroad checkpoints.
ROSTEK's property has been a source of dispute in the government, and it has been repeatedly proposed that the company be dissolved. After the Federal Customs Service was transferred to the direct control of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in the spring of 2006, its former controller, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, proposed creating a Federal Agency for the Development of Border Infrastructure, to remain under the ministry's control. That agency would receive the assets of ROSTEK.
In January of this year, First Deputy Director and head of the border service of the FSB Vladimir Pronichev stated that his agency was also developing an agency for more comprehensive border control. Kommersant has also learned that the Transportation Ministry also has its eye on the customs infrastructure.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 05, 2007
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