Customs authority rolls out border measures to boost non-oil revenues

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s General Customs Authority said it has launched a package of measures across border crossings following directives from Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi aimed at increasing non-oil revenues.

Director General Thamer Qasim Dawood has begun rotating staff at border crossings, unifying customs procedures and strengthening oversight and automation, the authority said. Dawood said schedules were being prepared to replace crossing staff with who he called “competent, honest and trustworthy personnel” to improve oversight, limit corruption and raise public revenues.

He also announced what the authority called the first agreement of its kind between Baghdad and Erbil to unify customs procedures at all border crossings and implement the ASYCUDA system across customs centers in the Kurdistan Region. The agreement was reached through joint meetings with a Kurdistan Region delegation including the Kurdistan Customs Directorate, the Standardization and Quality Control Authority and the region’s trade, agriculture and health ministries. Dawood said it would unify customs tariffs and procedures at all Iraqi crossings, establish a unified oversight system and close “all unofficial border crossings and passages” in the region, with automation handled by the national customs modernization team under federal supervision.

The measures follow a final agreement signed Thursday between Baghdad and Erbil on implementing ASYCUDA and a unified agricultural calendar. Finance Minister Falih al-Sari called unifying customs systems between the two a strategic step in Iraq’s economic reform, saying it would increase non-oil revenues, strengthen oversight, reduce evasion and standardize procedures in line with international standards.