Customs to charge extra EUR100 for every imported vehicle
However, he noted that he had no official information on this matter. Luidmila Shabanava, Director General of the Belarusian Automobile Association, did not believe in the raised charges, either. But, on Monday the deputy chief of the State Customs Committee, Uladzimir Goshyn confirmed that his agency had drafted a proposal to raise the duties at 5 percent effective from July 1, 2007.
Zmicier Navicki who edits the Auto-Business newspaper was not surprised with this behavior of the Belarusian officials.
“This is a standard situation, which has already been played around for several times. First, they circulate a rumor that the duties would be raised abruptly and at a high rate. Everybody starts selling and buying cars, prompting more cash to flow into the national budget. Afterwards, they announce an insignificant increase of EUR100, 200 or 300. At the background of the initial gossip, everybody feels happy, saying that we live in a wonderful country,” he said.
Presently, the customs duty for the import of a three-year-old vehicle with the engine capacity of up to 1500 cubic centimeters amounts to EUR0.6 per c.c. 1500-2500c.c.-strong engines are charged EUR0.7 per c.c. The duty of EUR0.75 is levied on the vehicles with the engine capacity of over 2500 c.c. The vehicles, aged from 3 to 10 years old, are charged EUR0.35, 0.4 and 0.6, correspondingly. The customs duty for the vehicles that were manufactured 10-14 years ago amounts to EUR0.75. Cars, older than 14 years, are charged EUR2 per cubic centimeter. All this applies to the first vehicle that is imported in the course of the year.
According to the Interfax news agency, citing Uladzimir Goshyn, the deputy chairman of the State Customs Committee, 5 Eurocents will be added to the already existing customs duties. Thus, a vehicle with the engine capacity of 1.6 liters will become more expensive at EUR80. 1.8l-strong cars will be charged additional EUR90, while vehicles with 2l-engines will require EUR100 of extra duties.
The State Customs Committee spokesman Uladzimir Pescerau refused to comment on the draft proposal to our radio on Monday, May 15 as well.
“We do not comment on this news. We are not going to elaborate on this,” he said.
Car dealers have met the news with different feelings. Volha Tsikhanava of Toyota Minsk talks confidently about the future.
“Our price will definitely rise. We are already putting a paragraph in our current contracts about a possible increase in the cost of our vehicles,” she told the European Radio for Belarus.
At the same time, she is confident that their sales will not drop.
According to Siargej who sells cars at one of car markets in Minsk, his colleagues are calm about the news. They also hope that the increase in customs duties will not affect people’s desire to purchase their “iron horse”.
Their concern grows drastically when they talk about the plans of the Belarus government to start assembling Chinese or Iranian cars in this country. In that case, import duties would be raised significantly. The Belarus PM Siargej Sidorski said earlier that those cars would cost around $6000-7000. Will the costs of used vehicles at the markets be raised to match this price level?
Zmicier Navicki, the chief editor of the Auto-Business newspaper, explains the position of potential customers in this regard.
Zmicier Navicki: “Let’s get out beyond the Minsk ring road and come to a nearest village and ask any villager what he would prefer to buy: a new Chinese car or a diesel VW Passat B3. Anyone would tell you that he would buy the Passat, because this is a standard people’s car in Belarus.
If the government starts assembling these Passat vehicles in Belarus, then one could talk about increasing the import duties. For now, there is no need yet for the government to protect our domestic car-makers. They are only interested in additional inflows of cash to the budget. Otherwise, when they start raising the duties like a bolt from the blue, we need to ask: “Why?”
Photo by photo.bymedia.net
