New border-crossing checkpoints are to be built at Kalotina (on Bulgaria's border with Serbia) and Kapitan Andreevo (on the border with Turkey) by 2015 under a World Bank-financed project of the Finance Ministry, State Administration and Administrative Reform Minister Nikolay Vassilev said here on Friday.

The Single Fiche system of payment, an electronic tool known in other EU Member States as "circulation sheet", was launched at the Kalotina Checkpoint on August 18. The system already functions at ten Bulgarian road border crossings at the EU external border.

Once the vehicle enters the checkpoint area, the driver receives a memory stick (the Single Fiche), on which each border agency uploads the results of its processing together with any amounts to be paid, such as customs duties and road tolls (vignettes).

Finally, the driver submits the memory stick to the local bank office to pay all amounts accrued on the Single Fiche in a single transaction. The automation of the process cuts the time for handling of a passenger car by 6-7 minutes to 15 minutes and of a truck by 15 minutes to some 35-40 minutes.

As from August 1, the vehicles entering Bulgaria at Kalotina are no longer required to undergo the disinfection introduced in 1997 because of the improvement of the epizootic situation in Serbia.

Before inspecting the operation of the Single Fiche system and the separate workstations, Vassilev conferred with senior officials of all services operating at the checkpoint. The Director of the Border Police Directorate, Commissioner Krassimir Petrov, and MPs Peter Beron and Olimpi Kutev attended the conference.