Imports Could Fall to $ 5 Billion in 2016

In view of the volume of imports of goods into Azerbaijan in January, we can assume that in 2016 the import of goods could be around $ 5 billion. This was stated by the Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee (SCC) Safar Mehdiyev on January 29.

According to him, the preliminary forecast for imports for 2016 amounted to $ 9 billion, $ 0.2 billion less than last year. However, these forecasts can be revised.

The SCC head Aliyev, in turn, believes it is too early to draw conclusions. He believes that in connection with the application of tax-free regime for imports of investment goods from this year on, increase in imports could be expected.

SCC appealed to the government for the imposition of import duties on postal parcels with a declared value of less than $ 1,000. According to the State Customs Committee, in January-October 2015, they registered 2.5 tons of such international postal parcels. Typically, they are used to import certain goods, said Aydin Aliyev. He gave the example of mobile phones, with the ratio of legal import to the undeclared one at 1 to 10. "If we estimate 1 kg of postal parcels at $ 250, we will get a huge amount of uncontrolled imports," said the chief customs officer.

At the press conference in SCC they also clarified attraction of the imported goods to the customs duties and VAT. Some entrepreneurs are dissatisfied with its level of about 36% of the cost of the goods and say they paid less before. "Let these business people turn to us and we will see how they managed that,” Aliyev stressed clearly.

All the commodities that pass the border get invoices. These invoices allow the importers to make mutual settlement of VAT with the state budget in the sale of the goods. ----08C