A working group of senior officials of the IT Customs Authorities in countries of the Agadir Agreement’s fourth meeting are preparing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which will facilitate the exchange of electronic data related to imports and exports among the constituting members.
The data will be culled and brought into a mechanism that will allow Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan to take action in economic markets to increase the volume of trade among themselves.
Head of the Customs Authority Magdy Abdel Aziz said the MoU covers information related to the road transportation of people and goods, as well as customs offenses in trans-border movements. The MoU will also provide the broad framework to target the exchange of customs information for travelers in cars, taxies and buses, as well as the movement of goods by truck.
Agadir Technical unit CEO Eid El-Mahsusi said the exchange of information is one of the most important components of the convention’s draft on customs cooperation between Agadir countries. The draft will handle exchanging legislation, notifications, anti-fraud, and trade exchange.
Commenting on the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) regulations on imports, Abdel Aziz said this process is necessary to eliminate ways to circumvent laws by the importers. CBE issued Monday safeguards to control the process of importing by the necessity of the importer to obtain a certificate from the bank in which they operates to finance their imports.
The first group of scanning devices has already reached Cairo International Airport, with a total of six devices having reached the airport. The authority is also waiting for the arrival of the second group of devices, that will account for an additional 23 units, in the next few weeks.
