| Customs sets a record Collect 1 trillion rubles. to the treasury this year and to enter the top five countries in terms of collections in 2008 - these are the ambitious plans of Russian customs. The leadership of the State Customs Committee announced them yesterday at the All-Russian meeting of the heads of customs authorities of the Russian Federation that opened in Moscow. The State Customs Committee assures that these plans are absolutely realistic.
Summing up the results of last year and the first months of this year, the State Customs Committee provides growth figures. In 2003, 757.6 billion rubles were transferred to the budget, which is 169 billion more than in the previous year. Moreover, according to customs officials, this was done not only due to the growth in foreign trade volumes, but primarily due to improved quality of administration. Thus, only adjustments to the customs value made it possible to recover an additional $237.2 million.
Speaking at the meeting, the head of the State Customs Committee Mikhail Vanin summed up the first results of the work under the new Customs Code. He recalled that the code sets a triune task for customs: full assistance in the development of trade, ensuring the effectiveness of customs control, and the complete collection of payments. According to Mr. Vanin, despite the fact that many skeptics predicted delays in the clearance of goods within three days (this is required by the new Customs Code), “there was no collapse.” In January 2004, customs processed more than 95 thousand cargo customs declarations. Of these, more than 62% - in one day, 22% - in two and 13% - in three. That is, more than 97% of documents are already drawn up according to the code.
Mr. Vanin claims that the predictions of those who predicted a sharp decrease in the volume of payments to the budget did not come true: the January-February indicators indicate the opposite. Customs will not only cope with the annual target of 852.7 billion rubles, but will also transfer approximately one trillion rubles to the treasury. That is why Mr. Vanin called on some government colleagues not to rush to revise the new Customs Code. He suggested looking at how it works in practice for at least six months, conducting monitoring, and only then talking about amendments. In the opinion of the head of the State Customs Committee, now it is more important not to edit the code, but to adjust related laws. In particular, bring the law “On Customs Tariffs” into compliance with the code and WTO requirements, amend the Tax Code regarding the collection of VAT, and amend the Code of Administrative Violations. In addition, the State Customs Committee complains that, being essentially a currency control authority, the customs office does not officially have this status.
At today's meeting, customs officials plan to approve a new target program for the development of the service until 2008. The result of its implementation, as Mr. Vanin said, should be: reducing the time for customs clearance to one day and passing cargo across the border to 10 minutes, reducing the volume of inspected goods to 8-10%, reducing departmental documents from 3 thousand to one hundred . It is also planned to increase the receipt of customs payments to the budget to 1.5 trillion rubles. per year, ensure uniform application of customs legislation throughout Russia and unify it with similar documents of neighboring countries. Vera KUZNETSOVA |
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