Improving Customs Transit Systems
In the Islamic Countries
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 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 year16.
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: Turkey-Iran e-TIR Pilot Project
Turkey-Iran e-TIR Pilot Project was developed by UNECE-IRU. The project envisages the
Customs to Business and Business to Customs (C2B2C) electronic data exchange. It was
launched in 2015 and completed successfully in 2017. In line with its excellent results, pilot
transports are still going on. Besides, both sides are in touch to extend the scope of the pilot.
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