For two years Crown Agents has worked together with the Macedonian finance ministry to sustainably enhance the effectiveness of the country's customs administration, transforming the customs administration in terms of its efficiency, institutional capacity and overall effectiveness.
Our team assisted Macedonian Customs to markedly improve compliance, increasing detection rates for irregularities such as undervaluation; incorrect description; undeclared goods; false origin claims; and incorrect transport costs, thereby increasing average revenue yield on examined imports.
We also significantly reduced levels of actual and perceived corruption, whilst facilitating legitimate trade and building capacity in line with international best practice and EU accession requirements.
In partnership with the Macedonian finance ministry, Crown Agents also further strengthened the customs administration's capacity, by developing new processes and procedures, conducting training and mentoring, and by drafting and implementing standard operating procedures.
The project was completed successfully in September 2009 with particularly impressive results, which contributed to the improvement of Macedonia's ranking in the World Bank's Doing Business Report and with Transparency International.