To assist the government in this endeavor, the World Bank’s US$31.2 million Emergency Customs Modernization and Trade Facilitation Project has been helping to computerize the customs processes at four major border crossings through which a wide variety of essential goods - ranging from wheat, rice, sugar, tea, vegetable oil, cement, scrap iron and motor vehicles - are imported into Afghanistan. These goods are imported into the country through the Torkham-Jalalabad-Kabul trade corridor from Pakistan in the east; the Islamqala-Herat-Kabul and the Torghundi-Herat-Kabul corridors from Iran in the west; the Heiratain-Mazar-e-Sharif-Kabul corridor from Uzbekistan in the north; as well as through three Inland Clearance Depots (ICD) at Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat, and the Kabul Airport.
The introduction of the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) at these points has tightened controls and removed the human interface in customs transactions, thereby increasing the speed of clearance and reducing the opportunities for corruption.
Since 2004, when the project began, customs revenues have soared from US$50 million to reach over US$ 399 million in 2008 - an increase of over 700 percent in just five years. In fact, in the past two years alone, customs revenues have increased by about 25 percent each year. The waiting time for trucks at the major border crossings has also decreased. For example, at the eastern border with Pakistan at Torkham, over 90 percent of trucks are now cleared in less than one and a half hours, down from 18 hours in 2003. At the Kabul Inland Clearance Depot (ICD), the average waiting time for trucks is now a quarter of what it was before computerization.
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