The Cabinet on January 11 approved the prolongation of the period during which oil products brought through the Novosavitskaya-Cuciurgan border crossing point can be cleared at the Bender-2 customs post for six months until July 1, 2018. The decision was taken after considering the possibility of extending the period of implementing the protocol decision on the restoration of freight railway traffic through the Transnistrian region until the end of this year, IPN reports.

The protocol decision was signed in Tiraspol in March 2012 and instituted a mechanism of joint customs control at the railway posts Rybnitsa and Bender-2, which allows exporting goods through the Transnistrian region under the control of the Customs Service of the Republic of Moldova. The state-run Moldova’s Railways resumed the transportation of exported/imported goods through the Colbasna-Slobodca and Novosavitskaya-Cuciurgan border crossing points located on the central Transnistrian segment of the Moldovan-Ukrainian state border, including of oil products.

In August 2016, Ukraine stopped to import oil products for the Transnistrian region by rail through the Slobodca and Cuciurgan points. The traffic of oil products was diverted to the Ocnita border crossing point from where these were taken to the railway stations Rybnitsa and Bender-2. Therefore, in November 2016 the Cabinet decided that the oil products brought through the Novosavitskaya-Cuciurgan border crossing point would be cleared at the Bender-2 customs post until December 31, 2016. The decision was later extended until December 31, 2017 and now for another six months.