At the end of July, Kamenny Log checkpoint hosted a meeting of representatives of customs and excise authorities from Belarus and Lithuania. The main objective of the meeting was to discuss the creation of favourable conditions for movement of goods and vehicles across the Belarusian-Lithuanian border.
Naturally, everyone wishes to reduce queues at checkpoints and one solution is to increase the number of checkpoints along the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. Belarusian and Lithuanian customs officers have agreed to transform some simple checkpoints into international crossing points: Vidzy-Tverečius, Moldevichi-Adutiškis and Losha-Šumskas.
Losha-Šumskas will be the first to launch, next year, while Kamenny Log is revamped, bringing diverted travellers to the next nearest checkpoint.
Queues at the border have been growing due to increased cargo and passenger flow. Over the first six months of this year, volumes of passenger traffic on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border increased by 11 percent (on 2012). International contacts are growing, while infrastructure at checkpoints, and numbers of personnel, remain the same.
New technologies can be used to process vehicles more quickly, and less busy internal customs officers can be transferred to the major border checkpoints, to speed up service. Green corridors are to be used for those with no goods to declare while border control will be tightened where necessary. This should eliminate problems with queues.
