The Association of European Businesses (AEB) participated in the International Customs Forum organized by the Federal Customs Service, which was held on 24-25 October 2018 in Moscow, World Trade Centre.

The Forum became an effective platform for exchanging experiences and establishing G2G and G2B relations in the field of foreign trade activity. The Forum featured both exhibition and discussion sessions, where a wide range of issues related to the customs administration improvement, export and import maintenance were discussed.

On October 24 Frank Schauff, AEB CEO, took a part in the International Customs Forum plenary session, which was held in a participation of Dmitry Medvedev, Head of RF Government, Anton Siluanov, First Vice-Prime Minister, Maksim Oreshkin, Minister of economic development, Vladimir Bulavin, Head of Federal Customs Service. Thereafter Dr. Schauff spoke about the balance of interests with regards to parallel imports at the session of the same name. 

On October 25 Alexej Soldatow, Chairperson of the AEB Product Conformity Assessment Committee, “BSH Bytowije Pribory”, participated in the session on the “Technical regulation in EAEC” and spoke on the European practice and regulation with regard to the certification procedure and safe products turnover. Alexey highlighted the necessity of uniform application of technical regulation norms on the territory of the Eurasian Economic Union.

The same day, on October 25, Julia Hertel, Head of Customs Department, IKEA, AEB Customs and Transport Committee member, and Sergei Rodin, Volkswagen, spoke at the panel discussion on “Е-Customs”.

In the framework of the International Customs Forum, on October 25, AEB also met with the European Commission representatives and discussed new customs legislation in RF and EAEU, customs law enforcement practices and other customs-related issues, which are acute for AEB member-companies, such as labeling by control identification marks and other types of labeling, technical regulation, parallel import. It was agreed to have a dialogue between AEB and EU Delegation on a regular basis for exchanging experience and sharing best practices in trade facilitation and customs administration.