Cover STORY
Fall 2017 / Issue 55
COVER STORY
Fall 2017 / Issue 55
Interview with Gjoko Tanasoski,
Director of the Macedonian Customs Administration
Customs Must Help Develop
Macedonia’s Economy
ACM: You were recently
appointed Director of the Mace-
donian Customs Administration.
Please tell us about your profes-
sional background and your first
impressions as you assume this
role.
I came to the position of Customs
Administration Director General with
extensive work experience that I
gained over many years working in
a variety of fields of economy. Most
of my work experience so far was in
the private sector, that is, working
for private companies in the area of
production and trade, where I had
the opportunity to directly take part
in and get familiarized with customs
procedures. I think this experience
was very important for me and will
help to jointly overcome the daily
challenges that stakeholders in cus-
toms procedures face.
Considering the key role Cus-
toms plays in protecting the finan-
cial interests of the state, public life
and health, but also protecting the
national economy by maintaining
and improving the conditions for
competitive business environment,
its Director General holds a very
responsible position that requires
sincere committed to transparency,
accountability and consistency when
dealing with numerous challenges,
particularly such that we’ve unfor-
tunately been facing the last ten
years. The goal must be to achieve
the right balance between protect-
ing the state financial interests on
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AmCham Macedonia Magazine
one hand, and fa cilitating, acceler-
ating and simplifying customs and
excise procedures, that is reducing
of costs and increasing Macedo-
nia’s competitiveness, on the other.
All this will prepare us to efficiently
function within the European Union.
The challenges are certainly great,
but I am confident that we can meet
them with teams of professional,
dedicated and hardworking people.
ACM: At a recent town hall-style
meeting with representatives of
the local business community, a
number of longstanding issues
(e.g., inconsistent application
of policies, lack of instructional
materials to help Customs users,
low-level corruption) were raised.
Which of these issues is the high-
est priority and what do you and
your team plan to do to address
them?
That meeting was organized
toward opening new channels for
communication and cooperation
with all Customs stakeholders. The
purpose of the event was to openly
discuss the daily challenges that the
direct participants in customs proce-
dures face during their work and to
hear suggestions how we can cre-
ate competitive economic environ-
ment together with our users. The
meeting was held in the Customs’
amphitheatre and was attended by
great number of representatives from
the association of freight forwarders,
the association of transporters, sev-
eral chambers of commerce, and
businessmen from several fields.
They pointed out that much should
be done to eradicate corruption,
improve control tools, and acceler-
ate customs procedures. They also
gave other suggestions and views
for improvement. I use this opportu-
nity to publicly thank all participants
for the constructive discussion and
to emphasize Customs’ and my per-
sonal commitment to organize many
more direct meetings of this type, to
help improve our work and to make
a breakthrough in our cooperation.
Along that line, I would add
that Customs must commit itself
to increasing trust with its users,
thereby eradicating corruption and
developing strategies, procedures
and methods to facilitate the flow
of trade in line with the legislation
and the legitimate needs of the
business community.
What matters most in that pro-
cess is to provide conditions and
set up standards for efficient exe-
cution of our duties and tasks, thus
directing our efforts toward improv-
ing our institutional and administra-
tive capacity to facilitate, accelerate
and simplify customs and excise
procedures. We will also focus on
enhancing risk-analysis based con-
trols, the vigorous development
of information and communica-
tions support, and strengthening
our human resources manage-
ment, including performance and
accountability measurement mech-
anisms. We will do our best to pro-
vide the best service to citizens,
economic operators and the State,
in accordance with domestic and
international standards and best
practices.
A very important segment I want
to emphasize will be the introduc-
tion of a new customs declarations
processing software, which has
been long awaited. Our sincere
commitment and top priority will
be the implementation of the new
software that will replace the exist-
ing ASYCUDA system thus elim-
inating long delays, interruptions
and disconnections that prevent
the timely submission of customs
declarations. The new software
should contribute significantly to
the improvement and facilitation of
customs operations and the intro-
duction of a paperless customs
environment. I expect the simplified
procedures to be revised as soon
as possible, to allow economic
operators that produce and export
to work 24 hours per day, seven
days per week.
ACM: How do you plan to
ensure continued, open dialogue
with company representatives
going forward?
Cooperation with economic
actors – which has been neglected
by the institutions in recent years –
must be built on sound foundations.
I am firmly committed to reorienting
Customs to serve as an institu-
tion that contributes to economic
development. Our main focus is
accountability and transparency, so
our efforts in future will be directed
towards advancing the work of the
Advisory Council, maintaining direct
contacts with representatives of the
business community, regular and
constructive monthly meetings that
will include progress reports. In this
way, we’ll encourage constructive
feedback from users, including crit-
icism or suggestions with respect
to our work, their proposals and
ideas, and their opinions on how
certain projects and measures are
implemented in practice. In partic-
ular, in the past two months, we
held a work meeting with repre-
sentatives from the Textile Cluster,
meat processing companies, the
Pork Producers Association from
the Economic Chamber of Mace-
donia, the Macedonian-Turkish
Chamber of Commerce, the Asso-
ciation of Freight Forwarders, the
Association of Transporters, repre-
sentatives from several chambers of
commerce, as well as businessmen
from several areas. These meet-
ings allowed exchange of experi-
ences on current topics and issues
in commercial operations aimed at
promoting cooperation and dealing
with challenges.
In the future we plan to orga-
nize workshops, presentations and
work meetings in other cities across
Macedonia toward meeting with
as many economic operators and
business sector representatives as
possible to directly and openly raise
questions and proposals for future
measures and projects.
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