December 27, 2016, 01:04 / Economics Exclusively by subscription

Trade in the Eurasian Union will become easier

The new Customs Code should reduce costs for business, but whether this will help depends on customs officers Elizaveta Bazanova The Eurasian Union will have a new Customs Code / M. Stulov / Vedomosti

The Presidents of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Armenia signed the Customs Code of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Now the document should be submitted for signature to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, said the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Tigran Sargsyan (quoted by Interfax). And then ratified by five countries. The process may take about six months, said the EEC representative. The Ministry of Finance also expects that the code will come into force in mid-2017, Deputy Minister Ilya Trunin said earlier (quoted by Interfax).

The EAEU Customs Code should replace the Customs Union Code adopted back in 2009. The new code has been in preparation since 2013, and the countries were supposed to adopt it at the end of 2015, but then it was not possible to reach an agreement, including due to Kazakhstan’s accession to the WTO, the federal official recalls.

The Code simplifies customs procedures, transfers customs to electronic regulation and makes life easier for business, says Vladimir Chikin, partner at Goltsblat BLP. For example, after its adoption, customs declarations will have to be submitted electronically, except in certain cases when people declare goods for personal use. It will be possible to submit a declaration without documents confirming its receipt, says Ksenia Rif, lawyer at the A2 law office. And it will take less time to release goods, says Chikin: if the risk profile for a product does not work, the goods will be released automatically without inspection by customs officers.

The status of authorized economic operators (AEOs, suppliers who can use customs procedures in a simplified manner) will also change. The term itself appeared in the current code, but specific requirements for companies applying for this status and what the advantages were were not described, Rif recalls. Now the code divides such operators into three categories: for example, the first will include companies that have been paying customs duties for at least three years. The list of privileges for such operators has also been expanded. For example, an AEO will be able to import goods directly to its warehouse, and not into the customs control zone, says Chikin. This is a big step forward, notes Galina Balandina, head of the Center for Support of Foreign Economic Activity and Regional Development.

Another important measure is the ability to pre-select the methodology for determining the customs value, says Chikin: for example, the company will be able to find out in advance whether royalties are included in the customs value of the goods. But a huge number of references to national legislation can hinder the simplification of customs procedures, Balandina warns, including regarding methodology.

For people, the new EAEU Customs Code, on the contrary, can create problems. A year after it comes into force, the amount of duty-free Internet parcels can be halved to 500 euros per month (above this amount the duty will be 30%, but not less than 4 euros per 1 kg), and a year later - to 200 euros (15%, but not less than 2 euros), said representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development and the EEC. If the code is adopted in mid-2017, the threshold will be reduced to 500 euros by mid-2018. Currently in Russia, parcels whose total monthly cost does not exceed 1,000 euros and whose weight does not exceed 31 kg are not subject to duties.

But simplification of customs regulation for companies will depend on the customs officers themselves, warns Balandina. The legislative code will make it possible to eliminate all paper documents and their repeated requirement, but the main thing is that the controllers themselves want to do this, she concludes.