Ashgabat hosted the 9th annual interregional meeting of heads of customs services within the framework of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) initiative "Passenger and Cargo Border Team".

Along with representatives of Turkmenistan, the meeting was attended by heads and authorized officials of the customs services of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Representatives of the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey participated as observers. The key topics of the meeting were the establishment of a mechanism for exchanging preliminary data on high-risk cargoes between the Port Control Units, the implementation of the component of the above-mentioned initiative "Regional High-Risk Cargo Alert System – RECASYS", and the finalization and implementation of the ContainerCOMM mobile application.

The participants also considered the issue of establishing new Port Control Units in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They discussed the progress achieved, prospects and priority areas for the implementation of the UNODC-World Customs Organization Global Container Control Program and the Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Interregional Network of Customs Services and Port Control Units. The "Passenger and Cargo Border Team" initiative is being implemented through the UNODC-WCO Global Container Control Program.