OREANDA-NEWS. January 23, 2008. Around RUB250 million has been spent on rebuilding the border checkpoint Novaya Rudnya at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus (SCC) Alexander Shpilevsky said during the solemn opening of the border checkpoint on January 22.

The project was funded by the Union State budget and partially by the central government budget of Belarus.

The reconstruction increased Novaya Rudnya’s vehicle throughput from 650 to 895 vehicles daily (620 cars, 260 trucks, 15 buses). It is not the limit, technologies are being improved, which is why it is possible to double the throughput yet, said Alexander Shpilevsky.

Construction of modern border checkpoints is brought about by the growing number of vehicles that cross the Belarusian border. In 2007 alone Novaya Rudnya saw around 150,000 tonnes of cargo cross the border, said the official.

In line with the programme for the top-priority development of the infrastructure of borderline customs clearance stations there are plans to commission another three border checkpoints in winter 2008 — Bruzgi, Berestovitsa and Mokrany.

This year the reconstruction of border checkpoints Domachevo and Benyakoni will complete. There are also plans to complete designing and start working on three border checkpoints — Grigorovschina, Begosovo and Privalka. The work will be funded by Belarus. “We plan to file requests for funding with the Union Cabinet for the construction and reconstruction of other border checkpojnts, but it will not happen before 2009,” specified the SCC Chairman.

2007 saw the completion of the Union State’s programme for top-priority development of borderline customs clearance stations in 2002-2007. As part of the programme eight international vehicle border checkpoints were built and reconstructed. Those are Kamennyi Log, Varshavsky Most, Kozlovichi, Novaya Guta, Bruzgi, Berestovitsa, Mokrany, Novaya Rudnya.