Republic

Border checkpoints Bruzgi and Berestovitsa (Grodno oblast) have been reopened after reconstruction, Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus (SCC) Alexander Shpilevsky told BelTA. Bruzgi and Berestovitsa are the largest border checkpoints at the country’s western border. They are located on a major motorway and have access to the second trans-European transport corridor Paris-Berlin-Minsk-Moscow. Russian cargoes, which are transported in this direction, account for 60-70% of the total and over 90% of the transit traffic. The ten-year-long reconstruction was funded by the national budget and the budget of the Union State of Belarus and Russia as part of the Top-Priority Border Infrastructure Accomplishment Programme. The reconstruction cost RUB592.64 million (the Union State budget apportioned RUB539.63 million, Belarus’ budget — over RUB53 million). At present Bruzgi and Berestovitsa are well-equipped border checkpoints fitted with local area networks, modern video surveillance systems and alarms as well as instruments for radiation control, screening equipment, communications and others. The equipment will enable effective customs control and other kinds of control with minimal border crossing time costs. A comfortable environment for the customs, border guard and other control services has been created. Bruzgi’s throughput capacity has increased from 1,000 to 5,000 vehicles daily, including 4,200 cars, 700 trucks and 100 buses. Berestovitsa is now able to process 3,800 vehicles daily, almost four times as much as before the reconstruction. BelTA learnt from representatives of the Grodno Regional Customs House, which operates the border checkpoints, last year every rouble spent on the customs maintenance earned almost Br37 in income. Every day over Br1.15 billion is transferred to the state budget on the average. All in all, in 2007 the customs service transferred Br423 billion to the state, almost 18% up on 2006.