Turkey's Customs and Trade Ministry issued a statement on Thursday about the work carried out on electronic systems to handle customs transactions faster and more efficient.The Ministry announced that in August, the transactions of 197,466 out of 247,628 customs export declarations, which is equal to 80 percent of all export declarations, were finished in the first 20 minutes after they were submitted, which was 75 percent in August 2013. 96 percent of all declarations were processed in 4 hours, and only 2 percent of declarations were processed in more than a day.According to the Ministry, a total of 271,519 customs import declarations were processed in August. 9.3 percent of all declarations were processed in the first 20 minutes, which was 7.5 percent in August 2013. 150,539 declarations, which is equal to 55 percent of all declarations, were processed in in first 8 hours, and only 29 percent of declarations were processed in more than a day.The results also pointed out the significance of simplified procedures in foreign trade for companies, such as Authorized Economic Operator certificate introduced in 2013. 89 percent of export declarations processed through simplified customs procedures were processed in 24 hours. This ratio was 46 percent for physically controlled declarations and 70 percent for document controlled declarations.