Development of Customs Infrastructure on the Ukrainian-Polish Border in the Conditions of Business Internationalization

The relations between Ukraine and Poland represent a long history of partnership and have a great economic importance for both countries. At the present stage, Poland is one of the largest international trade partners of our country. In the history of Ukraine’s foreign trade during 2019— 2020, Poland occupied second place in the structure of domestic exports. Thus, in 2020 the share of exports of Ukrainian goods to Poland was 6.65 %. First of all, it means a change in the vector of foreign trade development for the national economy and the reorientation of Ukraine’s export market to the European Union. In 2020, Poland also occupied one of the leading positions in the structure of Ukrainian imports of goods (4th place with a share of 7.62 %). This situation leads to a significant increase in the load at checkpoints and causes the need to ensure prompt and efficient customs clearance of goods moving across the Ukrainian-Polish border.
On the basis of the performed researches, significant differences in the levels of development of the customs services of Poland and Ukraine in terms of the quality of customs services have been established, as Ukraine lags far behind Poland in all the studied indicators in this area. Such situation requires the improvement of the work of Ukrainian customs authorities in the context of business internationalization, including the development of customs infrastructure in the area of the Ukrainian-Polish border. The key problems of customs service of enterprises at domestic checkpoints include long and costly customs procedures, lack of proper technical, road, information infrastructure at checkpoints, outdated technical instruments of customs control, etc.
It is proved that in the conditions of business internationalization one of the key tasks should be the construction of new checkpoints and the development of the customs infrastructure of the existing checkpoints. The key strategically important checkpoints in the area of the Ukrainian-Polish border, which need to be modernized in order to increase their capacity, include road checkpoints «Korchova- Krakivets», «Dorokhusk-Yagodyn», «Medyka-Shehyni», as well as a railway checkpoint «Medyka- Mostyska». In addition, the importance of spreading the practice of construction of joint checkpoints, which allows to significantly speed up the process of customs services for businesses, was emphasized.