Press Release
Customs and the security of international trade. WCE - 2005
An event of global scale - the World Customs Exhibition and Forum will for the first time take place in Baku on May 19-21. The exhibition will take place in the Sport and Exhibition complex named after Heydar Aliyev under the auspices of the World Customs Organization (WCO), the State Customs Committee of the Azerbaijan Republic and Interpol. Upon the initiative of the State Customs Committee of the Azerbaijan Republic and World Customs Organization, the organisers of the exhibition and forum are the British ITE Group Plc and its exclusive partner in the Caucasus - the Iteca Caspian LTD.
Following the first successful organisation of World Customs Exhibition and Forum in the Hungarian capital of Budapest in September 2003, the World Customs Organisation (WCO) decided to once again bring together the customs administrations, business leaders and industrial experts from all over the world. This time Azerbaijan has been chosen the venue of the event. Organisation of such a significant forum in Baku aimed at exchange of ideas, discussion of new proposals and demonstration of up-to-date technologies emphasizes the increasing role of Azerbaijan on the international arena and the growing interest of international organisations and foreign companies towards Azerbaijan.
45 companies from 12 countries take part in the exhibition to demonstrate to the visitors: monitoring systems, testing and detecting equipment, document readers, access control systems, intrusion signaling, detectors and inspection equipment, special safety equipment, guard services, consulting and insurance.
Such world-wide famous manufacturers as ALPVISION (Switzerland); AS&E (USA); BEIJING HUALIXING (China); COTECNA (Switzerland); CROWN AGENTS (Great Britain); DNA TODAY (USA); FM-ONE MANAGEMENT SERVICES (Germany); L3 SECURITY & DETECTION SYSTEMS (Great Britain); NUCTECH COMPANY (China); POLIMASTER (Byelorussia); RAPISCAN SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES (Great Britain); SAIC (USA); SGS (Switzerland); SMITHS DETECTION (France) and TARGET SYSTEMELECTRONIC (Germany) will demonstrate their equipment. Along with international companies such local companies as: INTERMEDSERVICE (Azerbaijan); KC & SS (Azerbaijan); MARCO COMPUTER (Azerbaijan); MURPHY (Azerbaijan); SINAM (Azerbaijan); SS - SECURITY SYSTEMS (Azerbaijan); AZER-JANUB (Azerbaijan) have also joined in the exhibition. Participation of leading manufacturers in this event will give strong impetus to raising the level of security standards in Azerbaijan both in the struggle against international crime and terrorism, and against national crime.
The Forum on "Customs Police and security of international trade" will take place on May 20-21 in the framework of the exhibition. The Forum will be held in the Grand Hotel Europe and gather more than 200 delegates. Delegations from 37 world countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Byelorussia, Brazil, China, Cote D'ivoire, France, Georgia, Germany, Haiti, Iceland, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Ghana, Russia, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, UAE, Great Britain, USA, Uzbekistan, and 10 international organisations will take part in the work of the conference. Among the international organisations taking part in the conference are the World Customs Organization, Interpol, the European Union, the Universal Postal Union, TRACECA, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), and the Economic Cooperation Organization. The objective of the forum is to create favourable conditions for discussions about secure environment in the whole world and improvement of customs services by introducing new technologies. The issue of creating modern customs control will be considered at the forum as well.
The World Customs Organization is of global importance in terms of elimination of terrorism and contraband and securing of safe international trade in the whole world. The importance of holding this event in Azerbaijan is ascribed to the geo-political location of the country on the Great Silk Route and on the way of the North-South and East-West transportation Corridors. Another important factor is the fact that as a result of the policy carried out by the Azerbaijan Republic President Ilham Aliyev, favourable conditions have been created for intensive development of the country's economy and business activity of foreign entrepreneurs. Owing to this factor Azerbaijan is one of the most attractive countries for business development in Eastern Europe.
The organisers hope that the World Customs Exhibition and Forum will give an opportunity for discussion of the topical issues of the given field existing all over the world and will become a unique forum for exchange of ideas and experience among the specialists and appropriate state structures of various countries, as well as will promote still advance towards the aim of securing safety of international trade by means of the latest technologies. There is no doubt that the safety technologies demonstrated at the exhibition will be wider used in Azerbaijan and in many other countries, and as a result, it will be easier for Azerbaijan and other countries to become strong links in the chain of world trade, as well as to debug the mechanism of high-level prevention of contraband and terrorist activity, and to step up the process of integration of these States into the world trade and economy.
The General sponsor of the Exhibition is NUCTECH Company. Also L3 COM, ATA HOLDING, MKT, GILAN, ELIT, STAR, CBS are among the sponsors of the event.