Veceaslav Șveț today celebrates, along with his colleagues, 26 years of existence of the Customs Service in Moldova. He is one of the people who build the pillars which now protects our boarders and as every other day, he is wearing his epaulet and is ready to defend our country whenever necessary.

56-year-old Vladislav Șveț has, for the first time, put on the customs officer uniform back in 1991 and left his home to defend our boarders. Even now, he fondly remembers his first day of work.

"Together with my colleagues we organized the Customs Service, we have begun our duty to protect the Republic of Moldova, at the Ungheni railroad. It was hard, since all declarations had to be written on papers" Chief of Customs Organization and Control, Vladislav Şveţ recalls.

For the past 26 years, the Customs Service went through a radical transformation, confirms Vladislav Şveţ.

"It made big, event gigantic steps, because the Customs Services went from recording vehicles and goods that passed our boarder, down on papers, to electronic registry. I'm proud of my job and consider it to be very important for our society" Chief of Customs Organization and Control, Vladislav Şveţ said.

Another customs officer, Vitalie Stratan, has begun his service in 1993. The man admitted that every day, since he started his duty, was challenging, but they handled it.

 "It is a very interesting and, however, complicated activity. It's specific field that obtains attributions from all the existing domains. We are honored to dedicate to our nation", said Vitalie Stratan, Head of Customs Control.

Head of Customs, Vitalie Vrabie aims to continue implementing the institution's modernization projects, which only benefits the state budget.

"In the first eight months of 2017, he collected import duties to the budget amounting to 12.858 billion lei, 2.32 billion lei more than in the same period last year." said Vitalie Vrabie.

"We succeeded to apply all standards on customs administration which enabled us to open the negotiations regarding the Association Agreement but also on the Free Trade Agreement." said Minister of Economy and Infrastructure, Octavian Calmâc.

At present, 1,520 collaborators are activated in the Customs Service.