Kyrgyz oil traders offer to reduce import duties on petroleum products to fight against smuggling

Almaty. May 17. Silkroadnews – Kyrgyzstan’s oil traders offer to reduce the import duties on petroleum products to fight against smuggling, KyrTAG reports.

“We have offered to reduce the rate of excise duty, as for the last 2 years it has grown two times. Besides, it is necessary to make an agreement with Kazakhstan on customs-free supply of oil products. That is to remove this artificial barrier on which the smuggling is built, as it is impossible to import these products from Kazakhstan formally, while the smugglers take advantage of such situation and import. Indeed, we shall also strengthen the operations by the state agencies, in particular law enforcement bodies,” said the executive director of the Association of oil traders of Kyrgyzstan Ulan Kulov at the roundtable meeting on Tuesday.

According to him, the association had already appealed to the government to take measures to combat the smuggling of petroleum products.

“To fight smuggling we need the economic measures. Smuggling petroleum products are imported from Kazakhstan. The basis of this contraband is the prices difference existing between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Once we reduce the difference, the smuggling will disappear respectively. It is necessary to reduce the cost of imports of petroleum products,” U. Kulov said.

According to him, first of all it is necessary to reduce the transport costs of the goods in transit.

“Now with transit from Kazakhstan we pay three times higher compared to the unified tariff applied.  Unfortunately, when joined the EEU we had a 2-years delay on the proposal of our government. Now, upon our request, the work has begun to implement the unified tariff ahead of schedule. With this we reduce the costs by $50-60 per tonne, i.e. 3,35 som per liter,” he also added.