The ninth meeting of the Steering Committee for Crown Agents’ Bulgarian Customs Modernisation Programme was held in Sofia on 15th of November 2006. It gathered representatives of all key stakeholders of the Customs reform process.

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.

Amongst the items discussed was a recently conducted study visit to Slovenia by four officers from the Bulgarian Customs Agency (BCA). Crown Agents facilitated the study tour which was recognized to be a great success. The study tour focused on the methods used in the control and deployment of Customs mobile teams.

The programme and Crown Agents’ 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 nine months of 2006 exceeded 5 billion BGN and, according to Bulgarian Customs Agency’s forecasts, are expected exceed 6.6 billion BGN for the whole year.