Customs officials of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan will jointly devise a strategy for rebuilding Afghan institutions on modern lines through technical assistance from neighbouring countries under the customs modernisation and trade facilitation project.
Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the program sponsored by the World Bank (WB) is likely to be launched on August 5-9, 2005 in Tehran to discuss the 'Afghanistan Emergency Customs Modernisation Trade Facilitation Project'.
The development of customs department of Afghanistan is on top of the agenda and Pakistan's tax officials are already giving technical assistance to Afghan government in chalking out tax laws/audit procedure for dealing with trade and commerce in Afghanistan.
The meeting, which was earlier scheduled for July 14-17, 2005, had been postponed due to change in the travel plans of Afghan Deputy Minister for Revenue and Customs Asad S Farhad.
The meeting would finalise the key areas of technical assistance which Afghan customs department needs from the respective customs agencies of Pakistan and Iran. It will also devise a method of merit-based selection for the required skills from Iran and Pakistan customs administrations to Afghan institutions.
All these countries will develop a timeframe for selection and deployment of the second cohort of regional customs advisors to Afghan customs department.
It will also review the strengthening of customs relationship between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.