NCTS Project

The Twinning Project under IPA 2012 “Modernization of the Albanian Customs Administration”, total costs 1.8 million EUR, duration 24 months, is divided into 2 components: 

1. Customs legislation and procedures related to interoperability of IT systems with the EU – NCTS System implemented;
2. Enforcement and Intelligence of Customs Transit.

Through this Twinning Project, Member States will provide technical assistance to: identify the gaps and needs of GDC including recommendations for further activities in the field of Common/Community Transit; drafting of all laws, bylaws or implementing provisions; awareness meetings with the traders; creating the management scheme and maintenance of NCTS system - New Computerized Transit System, such a scheme later it will be adopted by the Albanian Government, etc.

On the day of accession to EU, the national transit application must be fully compatible with NCTS. This means that on the day of accession, all the legal measures related to transit (the basic legislation and bylaw acts) should be in place, the IT system should be fully tested nationally and internationally and at least the traders with the status of authorized consignor/consignee should be connected with the external field of the national NCTS system.

Moreover Albania plans to accede to the Common Transit Convention before joining EU. Such a thing requires in principle to meet the same conditions of Community Transit as in the day of accession. According to the Strategy of ACA joining the Common Transit Convention is a priority for Trade and IT components. NCTS priority development will allow achieving this strategic objective even before EU accession. This Twinning Project marks the first step towards preparing Albania for the implementation of the NCTS system.

The Twinning Project Fiche prepared by EUD in partnership with GDC structures is distributed to EU Member States and in May 2015 was completed the Tender for the winning Administrations that should implement the assistance for ACA. 

 In July 2015, it was announced the winner, The Consortium between Italian and French Customs Administrations and it was signed with them the Twinning Contract. The implementation of this contract has already started on 4th of January 2016 and has duration of 2 years. 

 The GDC Directorates which are directly engaged/benefiting from the project and that should attend or cooperate in its implementation are: the Administrative Department, Technical Department, Legal Directorate, Procedures Directorate and IT Directorate. 

 On 10th of March 2016 it was organized the Official Kick-Off Ceremony of the Twinning Project "Modernization of the Albanian Customs Administration”. The ceremony was attended by Mr. Ingve ENGSTROEM, EU Delegation to Albania, representatives of Italian and French Embassies and their respective Customs Administrations, as well as Ms Irena BEQIRAJ, Deputy Minister of Finances.

 The project is going normally according to the Contract. Until now there are carried out a total of 37 activities for Component 1 (Customs legislation and procedures related to the interoperability of IT systems with the EU NCTS system that) and 19 activities for Component 2 (Enforcement and Intelligence in Customs Transit).