2 Customs requirements concerning cargo and other articles
2.1 Aircraft entering the territory of Georgia are subject to customs examination.
2.2 Cargo, baggage and international mail carried across Georgia frontier are subject to customs clearance.
2.3 Disembarkation of cargo, baggage and international mail from aircraft and their embarkation into aircraft at international airports in Georgia shall be carried out with the permission of a customs office (officer).
2.4 For customs clearance purposes the pilot-in-command of an aircraft must:
- present to a representative of the customs office the general declaration, the cargo manifest complete with bills of parcels, invoices, specifications and bills, as well as air waybills and other documentation for the cargo carried;
- indicate and open for clearance (examination) all aircraft compartments.
2.5 Foreign passengers are prohibited to carry, while on flight in the airspace of Georgia, as cargo and/or baggage:
- military supplies or military equipment;
- explosives, toxic agents, radioactive materials, narcotics, as well as articles of contraband;
- animals suffering, or suspected of suffering, of infectious diseases, as well as produce and/or raw material of animal origin and forage that may be carriers of infectious diseases;
- quarantinable materials, soil living plants with soil from countries whose territory is not free from quarantine pests and diseases, as well as quarantinable materials, soil or living plants with soil infected by quarantine pests and/or diseases.
2.6 Sporting guns and ammunition for these, as well as fire-arms and ammunition for these and hunter’s knives, with the consent of the carrier, may be carried as registered baggage, provided these have been placed in baggage-cargo compartments of the aircraft inaccessible to passengers. At that, sporting guns and/or hand firearms shall be unloaded and ammunition for these, appropriately packed separately.
2.7 Radio sets, including those of small dimensions, may be carried only if packed into baggage.
2.8 Jettisoning from an aircraft any object including the use of parachutes in the airspace of Georgia are permitted only in distress. A parachute may be carried on board of an aircraft only if an instruction to this effect is contained in the flight clearance documentation.
3 Phitosanitary quarantine requirements
3.1 Importation of animals from foreign States, as well as produce and/or raw material of animals, forage and/or articles that may be carriers of infectious disease, in Georgia, is only allowed with the permission of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Georgia only from the countries without particularly dangerous infectious animal diseases. The animals shall be subject to quarantine and veterinary treatment in the territory of the exporting country.
3.2 Animals, produce and/or raw material of animal origin, as well as forage shall be imported to Georgia only through designated veterinary control points of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Georgia if accompanied by veterinary certificates issued by veterinarians employed by the exporting State.
3.3 The certificates shall confirm that animals, fowl, produce and/or raw material origin, forage and places of their origin are free from infection. In addition, the veterinary certificates shall indicate the methods and dates of investigation and treatment of the animals and/or produce of animal origin and the results obtained.
3.4 Animals passing through a veterinary control point shall be subject to a clinical examination, temperature taking and veterinary treatment and, in specific cases, to quarantine of a standard term.
3.5 Raw material of animal origin, raw animal produce and/or forage shall be examined with a view to ascertaining the observance of the rules for importation, carriage and packing of the cargo, as well as the presence of the seal of the animal quarantine authority.
3.6 It is forbidden to import and/or carry in transit through the territory of Georgia animals suspected of a disease and/or animal produce of countries that have been infected in the last twelve months with the following diseases:
- aphthous fever of the CAT 1,2 or 3;
- Asia-1 types and other exotic types;
- African swine fever;
- African horse plague;
- cattle plague and/or
- classical fowl plague.
3.7 If the veterinary and sanitary requirements for importation have been met and the animals, fowl, animal raw material and/or animal raw produce and/or forage have been found free from infection, a veterinary control point shall issue, in exchange for a veterinary certificate, a license to carry on the aforesaid to the place of destination in Georgia.
3.8 If the veterinary-sanitary requirements for importation of animals, produce and/or raw material of animal origin, or forage in Georgia have not been fulfilled, or if an infectious disease has been revealed among the animals, produce and/or raw material of animal origin, or forage have been found to be infected, the cargo may be detained at a veterinary control point, shipped back to the supplier or destroyed.
3.9 The following materials imported into Georgia or in transit through Georgia shall be subject to quarantine examination:
- seeds of crop plants and wild plants;
- living plants and their parts (seedlings, cuttings, tubers, etc);
- bread and fodder grain, fresh fruits, cotton fiber and other fiber crops, as well as raw tobacco and fresh spices;
- all living cultures of fungi, bacteria and viruses, as well as every kind of living entomological objects;
- all kind of collections of insects, plant and seed diseases, as well as herbaria;
- unbaked wood;
- bedding and/or forage accompanying imported animals;
- parcels, cabin-carried articles and baggage of passengers and rations of crew, containing plant ingredients.
3.10 No vegetable produce should be taken from foreign States to the territory of the Georgia, unless it is accompanied by the following:
- Importation quarantine certificate issued by the State Quarantine Inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture and food;
- Certificate issued by the appropriate agricultural authority in the country of origin attesting that the exported vegetable produce indicated in para 3.9 has not been infected with quarantine pests, disease or weeds.
3.11 The procedures and requirements for examination of vegetable cargo at airports are stipulated by the Rules of the State Quarantine Inspection of the Georgian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and are carried out by plant quarantine stations.
3.12 If quarantine pests and diseases are found in vegetable cargo exported to Georgia, these cargo are to be, subject to option by owners, disinfected, destroyed or shipped back to the country of origin.
3.13 The transporting aircraft is subject to disinfection in accordance with the established procedures.
3.14 Plant quarantine officers may take samples for examining the state of the transported cargo.