The eighth meeting of the Steering Committee for Crown Agents’ Bulgarian Customs Modernisation Programme was held in Sofia on 20th of September 2006.

With the agreement of the Finance Minister, the latest quarterly report on the progress of the Bulgarian Customs Modernisation Programme was presented to the committee by Crown Agents’ senior managers for Bulgaria – Mr. Brian Banks, Programme Director; Mr. David Smith, Programme Manager; and Mr. Frank Ferguson, Principal Customs Advisor.

The meeting gathered representatives of all key stakeholders of the Customs reform process. Amongst the items discussed were changes to the role of the Mobile Assurance Teams (MATs) with regard to the training and development of Bulgarian Customs Agency (BCA) MAT leaders and the regionalised deployment of the MATs.

Crown Agents is pleased to report that the Bulgarian Customs Modernisation Programme and our cooperation with the Bulgarian Customs Agency and the other stakeholders continue to produce excellent results, as confirmed by the increasing rise in customs revenues. The receipts for the first eight months of this year are over 33% higher than the revenues for the corresponding period of 2005.