Government plans to halve number of internal customs

Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk said that in his interview with the newspaper “Segodnia” ("Today").

"And here we use the European model, because there is a very simple thing such as a free trade zone with the EU - our commitments. What shall we do? We shall significantly reduce the number of internal customs. There is a proposal to reduce them by half. I would reduce their number even more," he said.

The minister noted that there are now 241 internal customs.

"We have many checkpoints and, and at each point we must have a customs office. But in fact who said that? For example, for freight transport we may have only, say 20% of them opened. And some may just be for the convenience of local residents or tourists, only pedestrians, or bicycles, or cars. Therefore, it is necessary to make all diversified border crossing points, of different size, with a different set of services at customs. There may be simplified border crossing points where there is no need to have a customs officer. If you go by bicycle, probably there is no need to do skin-searches of you," the minister added.