ASTANA (Interfax-Kazakhstan) – Starting from 2014, Kazakhstan will accept electronic customs declarations all over its territory, said Deputy Chairman of the Customs Control Committee Igor Ten.

In the USA, the Automated Export System (AES) is used by exporters to electronically declare their international exports, known as Electronic Export Information (EEI), to the Census Bureau to help compile U.S. export and trade statistics. This information is also shared with the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, and other federal agencies involved in monitoring and validating U.S. exports. Formerly, this declaration was only made on paper on the Shipper’s Export Declaration form.

He remarked that a pilot project to introduce the new format of customs declarations would be launched this year.

“I believe in 2014 the practice will become standard,” Ten told journalists following a meeting of the advisory council on customs reform in Astana on Wednesday.

“Electronic customs declarations can be filed from any place with an Internet connection. They will be processed automatically in a matter of minutes,” he added.

e-Government in the World

The United Nations Public Administration Network conducts a bi-annual e-Government survey which includes a section titled e-Government Readiness. It is a comparative ranking of the countries of the world according to two primary indicators: i) the state of e-government readiness; and ii) the extent of e-participation. Constructing a model for the measurement of digitized services, the Survey assesses the 191 member states of the UN according to a quantitative composite index of e-government readiness based on website assessment; telecommunication infrastructure and human resource endowment.

The following is the list of the top 10 countries according to the UN’s 2010 e-Government Readiness Index: