Ukrainian business is among the first 20 countries out of 36 countries of the Convention on a Common Transit Procedure to start using the NCTS (New Computerized Transit System) Phase 5, the Ministry of Finance reported on its website on Wednesday.
“Ukraine had 1.5 years less time to develop NCTS Phase 5 than other Convention countries, and also started this process during the work of the Evaluation Mission before joining the family of Convention countries on October 1, 2022. Despite the full-scale war, Ukrainian government agencies, thanks to the constant support of international partners, in particular the EU Public Finance Management Support Program in Ukraine (EU4PFM), have ensured that Ukrainian businesses can operate in the latest version of the NCTS since April 22 this year,” the statement said.
The Ministry of Finance summarized that since the beginning of Ukraine’s accession to the “customs visa-free regime”, the dynamics of issuing declarations in the common transit procedure continues to grow: to date, the State Customs Service has issued more than 100 thousand NCTS declarations, of which 21 thousand were issued in 4 months of using NCTS Phase 5.
The Ministry recalled that the Convention countries began developing and transitioning to NCTS Phase 5 in March 2021.
In the same year, Germany started using it, and in 2023, 13 more countries (Slovenia, Spain, Luxembourg, Croatia, Switzerland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Estonia, Czech Republic) made the transition.
It is noted that in the first half of 2024, Ukraine, as well as Norway, Sweden, Serbia, Romania, and Cyprus, joined the list of countries using NCTS Phase 5. In July 2014, the UK and Slovakia started using NCTS Phase 5. Another 15 countries (Lithuania, Austria, North Macedonia, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Turkey, Portugal, Malta, Greece, Hungary, Andorra, Belgium, Georgia) plan to complete the transition to NCTS Phase 5 by the end of 2024.
