Azerbaijan appreciates UNODC's efforts on strengthening Customs cooperation

The UNODC Headquarters in Vienna and UNODC Regional Office for Central Asia have been awarded by the breastplates and certificates  for "strengthening Customs cooperation" signed by Mr. Aydin Aliyev, Chairman of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The award ceremony was held on 25 April 2017 during the fourth regional meeting of the UNODC-World Customs Organization- Global Container Control Programme (CCP) in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Azerbaijan has joined CCP in April 2014 and since then actively works with UNODC under this initiative developed for the purpose of minimizing the risk of maritime containers being exploited for trafficking of various illicit goods, such as drugs, precursor chemicals, firearms, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear material, and other forms of organized crime in the selected sea and dry ports.

The CCP assists government in building capacity of relevant law enforcement officers conduct risk-based assessment of trucks and containers on selected sites and key points along the trade routes in the region. Establishing, equipping and training officials in dedicated container profiling units (Port Control Units-PCUs) is at the core of the programme.

The U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), the Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) Program, as well as the Government of Japan are the donors for the CCP Regional Segment for Central Asia and Azerbaijan.