Bulgarian Ports
Infrastructure Company

Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company (BPI Co.) made official demonstration of the system for electronic processing of shipping documents upon arrival and departure of vessels to/ from Bulgarian river ports, known as the Single Window on the river. The event took place in the River Information Centre - Ruse. In the presence of local institutions and media the experts from the SD Vessel Traffic Management – River Danube to BPI Co. presented the main functionalities of the system and demonstrated the way it works – from data input, trough information flow tracking to approval on the submitted documents obtaining.

The system of electronic document flow of river transport was commissioned by BPI Co. of July 1, 2016 and has since been working both with documents on paper and electronically. As of March 15, 2017 Single Window works only electronically.

The system is a set of technical tools and service staff, a unit in BPI Co, acting as “one stop shop” service for collection, processing and storage of documents and data for ships arriving and/ or departing from the Bulgarian Danube ports. Single Window ensures electronic transmission of data to and from border control services and provides electronic access of registered external users to the information. The idea is through single submission of data to perform their processing by the various departments involved in the process of the border, customs, health, veterinary and phytosanitary control. The System is developed based on software owned by BPI Co., tested, upgraded and adapted to regulatory requirements on river transport.

Single Window allows standardized information and documents to be submitted electronically rather than on paper, in a single entry point. The principal of "one stop shop” is already introduced in all Bulgarian ports on the Danube River. The goal of the new organization of work is to alleviate the administrative services of the business of the inland navigation. The documents submission can now be done from a PC or mobile device from anywhere. This greatly enhances and eases the administrative services to businesses along the river and promotes the development of freight and passenger transportation.