Сustoms generate seventh part of Kazakhstan budget

Profits generated by Kazakhstan customs constitute one seventh part of the national budget, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Senator and member of the Customs Financial Monitoring Commission Gani Kassymov. “In 2011 Kazakhstan’s customs authorities generated an income of over 1 trillion tenge ($6.7 billion) for the country budget. This is equal to the profits generate by the whole Almaty city. And considering that the country’s budget has reached 7 trillion tenge ($46.7 billion), the customs authorities are generating one seventh part of the budget. This share is similar to the one generated by customs authorities in Great Britain, the United States and Japan. The customs authorities in these countries produce approximately the same share in their national budgets,” Gani Kassymov said. According to the Senator, 60 customs posts were eliminated at Kazakhstan-Russian border since Kazakhstan entered the Customs Union. Currently there are 96 customs posts operating in Kazakhstan. Along with that, there are local and oblast customs departments that help participants of foreign-economic activities do a more efficient work. “Much has been done by Kazakhstan customs authorities over the last 1.5 years. The improvements not only influenced the operations of the customs authorities, but also increased transparency of all the operations related to goods turnover at the border. We are not behind the global levels. The competence and professionalism of our customs officers is at the average level of the world's top 10. In line with such great countries as the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France,” Kassymov added.