Improving Customs Transit Systems

In the Islamic Countries



The goods are accompanied by the TIR carnet, which provides proof of the existence of

the guarantee and serves as the customs transit declaration in the countries of

departure, transit, and destination. TIR carnets are printed and issued by the

International Road Transport Union (IRU) to national guaranteeing associations. A TIR

carnet is valid for a single TIR operation only. It is taken into use in the country of

departure and serves as the customs control document in the countries of departure,

transit, and destination;



The countries of transit and destination accept customs control measures taken in the

country of departure. As a consequence, goods carried under the TIR procedure in

sealed means of transports or containers as a general rule will not be part of

examination at customs offices in transit.



For controlling access to the TIR procedure, national associations wishing to issue TIR

carnets and persons wishing to utilize carnets must comply with minimum conditions

and requirements and must be authorized by the competent authorities, in many cases

CAs.

To date, 76 contracting parties across the globe have ratified the UN TIR Convention. More than

33,000 operators are authorized to use the TIR system and around 1.5 million TIR transports

are carried out per year

Information technology plays a vital role in the TIR system for higher regionalization of CTR. In

2003, the contracting parties to the TIR convention launched electronic TIR (eTIR) Project. The

goal of eTIR is to ensure a secure system of exchange of data between CAs related to the

international transit of goods, allowing them to manage the data on guarantees, the availability

of advance cargo information for risk management purpose. For example, Real-Time Safe TIR

(RTS) automatically makes real-time check regarding the validity of issued TIR Carnet and CAs

can send feedback about the termination of a transit procedure. On the other side, TIR electronic

pre-declarations (TIR-EPD), allows CAs to get the advance information on transit goods and

perform an advanced risk assessment.

Box 1: Piloted intermodal transports on the Turkey – Iran border

Iran, in 2018, successfully piloted intermodal transports on the border with Turkey using the

digitized TIR carnet. Thanks to this, all customs procedures in this country are now fully

digitized. The next step is to introduce the possibility of using e-TIR on the border with

Azerbaijan. Iranian and Azerbaijani customs have recently come to an agreement on this

matter