OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2012. Only 20% of merchant ships are inspected onboard by Customs officers in the port of Kaliningrad, a local Customs official said.

According to Svetlana Kumaneva, chief of customs control enforcement of Kaliningrad regional Customs, who attended the 4th Baltic Transport Forum, the customs officers would board a ship for examination only if they had been informed on the available risks.

The new customs control procedure, the inspection of ship and cargo after off-loading, has been effective in the Russian ports since early 2011, after the Russian Ministry of Transportation approved the Model Scheme of border crossing checkpoints through the state border of the Russian Federation of persons, vehicles, cargoes, goods and animals in the sea and river (lake) checkpoints.