The business of Kazakhstan is troubled by the draft law of the Russian Federation, giving the authority to the Russian government to introduce restrictions on certain categories of goods

Department of economic integration of NCE RK "Atameken" points out that, as follows from the text of the document, restrictions will be imposed, including both the circulation of goods imported at rates different from the rates of the Common Customs Tariff and in respect of goods to which restrictions are applied unilaterally ("sanctioned goods").

"The draft of the Federal law also defines the right to introduce bans on other categories, which are defined by the Presidential Decree. Undoubtedly, it is the right of every sovereign state, but the introduction of the concept of turnover is confusing. Thus, according to the introduced changes to the Federal Law of Russia “turnover of certain categories of goods in the Russian Federation, - transportation (transportation) of certain categories of goods on the territory of the Russian Federation, storage, transhipment, handling, packing, breaking bulk, processing (processing)" and so on.

Our concern is the fact that changes are made to the Federal Law "On Customs Regulation in the Russian Federation". At the same time the legislation of the Member States of the Union on customs administration applies solely to the extent not regulated by the legislation of the Customs Union.

That is the concept of turnover as defined in the project document includes practically all the issues of customs control, which are already covered by the customs legislation of the Customs Union.

"We, as a business, confused not only Russia's right to impose a ban, as by the very concept of turnover, introduced by the draft law, and, in fact, implying the ban, including the transit of "sanctioned” goods, as well as goods from our lists of exceptions under the WTO", - says board member of NCE RK "Atameken" Dana Zhunusova.

It is worth mentioning that at present the Republic of Kazakhstan – is the participant of large-scale economic organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union. Like any civilized country, Kazakhstan when entering into these international organizations expected to maximize the benefits in building economic relations on equal terms with the other participants, including through the free movement of goods.

"The first wake-up call, so far unresolved, for Kazakhstan's business was the introduction of the sanctions policy of one of the Member States of the Union - the Russian Federation, which inevitably has brought discomfort to the normalization of economic relations in the EAEU. For Kazakhstan, in particular, a ban on the import of products from the sanctioned list to the territory of Russia, repeated complication of conditions of transportation of such goods through Russian territory - sealing, escort of goods, electronic invoice, strictly defined routes, constant inspections by supervisory bodies on the way and etc.

In this situation it is particularly worrying in the considered Russian document, the norms of which in practice can be applied to the total prohibition of transit of "sanctioned" goods through the territory of the Russian Federation to Kazakhstan", - fears Dana Zhunusova.

However, the draft law of the Russian Federation "was developed in order to give to the Russian Government the right to impose a ban on the circulation in the Russian Federation of certain categories of goods, in respect of goods, the import of which into the territory of the Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union implies payment of customs duties at rates other than those established by the Common customs tariff of the Union, in particular in Kazakhstan".

In the case of goods included in the list of exemptions within the framework of the WTO commitments of the Republic of Kazakhstan, it is important to note that only 25% of the total volume of goods from the list of exemptions are imported into the Republic of Kazakhstan at discounted WTO rates, and the remaining 75% are still being imported in accordance with the CCT.

"Moreover, according to statistics, of the total exports of Kazakhstan to Russia in 2016 the share of goods from the List was only 3.7%, that is 130.3 million USD". - says Dana Zhunusova.

 At the same time, according to the legal framework of the Union, the re-export of goods imported to Kazakhstan at WTO rates, already is prohibits de facto the export to other EAEU countries.
"The laws of the Member States of EAEU provide a measure of responsibility for the failure to comply with agreements regarding the circulation of goods from Kazakhstan's List of exemptions on the territory of our partners in the Union.

In turn, products from the "sanctioned" Russian list, as it is known, are subject to liquidation upon detection of their turnover in the Russian Federation, which has been repeatedly demonstrated by Rosselkhoznadzor, publicly destroying agricultural food. The same goods come to Kazakhstan with such problems that it is completely unprofitable to export them to Russia", - said Dana Zhunusova.

However, NCE RK "Atameken", as an organization representing the interests of Kazakhstani business, fears that this draft law will serve a stimulus for the supervisory and control authorities of the Russian Federation to tighten control over the movement of goods from the EAEU countries at absolutely no grounds, complicating the already unflattering realities of Kazakhstani businessmen.

"The blurred boundaries of the concept of turnover in the draft law raise concerns. If we are talking about banning goods from Kazakhstan's list of exemptions from turnover in Russian, imported into the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan, it is settled by Burabay Protocol on 16^th of October 2015.

Therefore, based on the practices of the problems with the transit, our business faces regular bans on trade of goods in the context of restrictions on the transit.

That is, to date, about 50% of the goods from the list of exemptions of Kazakhstan – are European goods, following to us in transit through the territory of the Russian Federation. If guided by the concept of turnover, according to the norm of the draft Federal Law, then the application of this document risks our business to lose the ability to import WTO goods through Russia", - said Dana Zhunusova.