Tatarstan customs recovers pre-COVID-19 workload and gets ready to launch bonded warehouse
The complicated situation due to the coronavirus epidemic around the world reduced the Tatarstan customs’ turnover. The amount of goods imported from other countries reduced significantly, while the cancellation of flights from March to July at Kazan’s international airport forced customs workers to switch to remote working and go on holiday. But as Director of Tatarstan Customs Marat Garayev said at a press conference on 22 October, his service had already resumed the previous regime of work and managed to transfer over 3 billion rubles to the federal budget.
Foreign equipment is imported to Tatarstan, while chemicals and petrochemicals are exported
Tatarstan’s external trade turnover increased 1,2 times from January to September: if the sum totalled $205 million in 8 eights last year, this year, the result was $246,4 million. This indicator applies only to those declarations that went through Tatarstan’s customs as effective customs control. The case is that 16 electronic customs declaration centres (CDC) have been created in Russia since October 2018. One of them is in Nizhny Novgorod. And as Marat Garayeve explained, the amount of declarations filed through the Nizhny Novgorod electronic centre by enterprises and sole traders of Tatarstan is many times bigger than those through the republican customs control — over $7,1 billion.
Garayev named India, Uzbekistan, Serbia, China and Turkmenistan as the biggest trade partners of the republic. The republic mainly supplies products made in chemical and petrochemical plants, mechanical engineering and fuel and energy sectors to these countries — 10,5%. Moreover, Germany (35,7%), South Korea (19%), Turkey and China are the countries importing their commodities to Tatarstan. Foreign manufacturers mostly supply mechanical engineering products, metals and metallic goods, fabric and shoes.
Head of the Customs Service Marat Garayev complained about a big reduction in equipment for the republic’s industry imported from other countries. Due to the coronavirus attack, Europe had to suspend the operation of its plants, so supplies of both spare parts and equipment ordered by Tatarstan’s enterprises earlier stopped. But everything came full circle, Garayev inspired some hope and “the enterprise recovered previous output, while some already have had growth”.
Tatarstan residents don’t stop importing and ordering “banned” goods from abroad
Customs workers’ amount of work recovered as well after flights both across Russia and abroad at the Kazan international airport resumed.
As Garayev noted, tourists arriving from abroad often try to import alcohol — there already have been over 90 such cases. As it is known, the amount of alcohol including beer can’t exceed 3 litres per person older than 18 years. Moreover, rules of importing tobacco, wild flora and fauna specimens (mainly corals), currency (a sum above $10,000 is subjected to declaration) are violated. Different medications that also must be declared at the customs. The airport’s customs service in general has filed about 390 cases on administrative violations.
As for banned goods in parcels that also go through customs control, it is usually parcels from China — glasses, keychains or usual bulbs where masters from the Celestial Kingdom build a hidden camera in. There are fishing nets that are banned from being imported to Russia, batons, brass knuckles, seeds, small articles and counterfeit toys. As Marat Garayev noted, it is mostly Lego blocks.
There was another fact, Garayev added, when a banned strong drug — anabolic steroid — arrived in a parcel from Belarus. Athletes and fitness coaches place such orders.
Kazan to join experiment with bonded warehouse
The Tatarstan Customs Service is getting ready to open bonded warehouses. Alongside Moscow, Kazan will become a part of an experiment with big warehouses where products of different foreign marketplaces such as famous AliExpress will be supplied and stored for three years. The goal of creation of such bonded warehouses is to considerable speed up the delivery time of goods ordered by Russians.
We should remind you that in August Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov and head of Russian Post Maksim Akimov signed an agreement on creation go a pilot project on bonded warehouses, while the operating distribution centre of Russian Post near the Kazan airport and Sviyaga multimodal logistic centre were considered as a site for the bonded warehouse.
Permits and documentation for bonded warehouses are already prepared in the country’s government, while warehouses in both capitals are expected to start operating till the end of the year, Garayev noted.
“The dates vary: on 1 November, 1 December and 1 January. Given the situation and the documents we have, cooperating with the Volga office and Federal Customs Service we are sure that this project and documents will be ready this year, first of all, it is the government’s decree on the experiment and the Finance Ministry’s order, which will determine customs proceedings of the customs warehouse.”
Russian Post will join the operational system of such warehouses — the company will import goods from abroad ordered by Russians as a postal service operator after an agreement is signed with an online platform.
“The technology is new, it is an experiment. But we will make sure Kazan is the leader here,” Garayev stressed.