Thursday, October 26 2017 13:51

ArmInfo. The Armenian government approved a draft on ratification of the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) at October 26 session. The document will be sent for ratification to the parliament.

The countries-participants of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan) signed the Customs Code of the EAEU in April of this year. As the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Tigran Sargsyan stated earlier, many processes will now be automated, and communication between entrepreneurs and customs will be reduced to a minimum. "After the entry into force of the Customs Code, we expect a significant improvement in the business climate in the EAEU" he said. As explained in EAEU, the document legislatively fixes the transfer of the system of customs administration of foreign economic activities in the Union from "paper" to electronic technologies.  Such an approach will significantly save the resources of the business, accelerate the process of passing customs formalities, and in fact neutralize the "human factor" in decision-making at all stages - from registration of the declaration to release of goods.

Work on the new TC was conducted for three years. The Customs Code of the EAEC was the first agreement in the legal framework of the Union, which at all stages was developed jointly by the Commission, state bodies and business communities of all five participating countries. Earlier it was assumed that the Customs Code of the EAEU will come into force on July 1, 2017, but after the Eurasian Economic Commission announced the transfer to January 1, 2018 of the entry into force of the new Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), instead.

The new Customs Code will come into force after the Eurasian Economic Commission receives notifications of the ratification of the Treaty from all the countries participating in the EAEU. The Customs Code of the EAEU is one of the main documents of the legal framework of the Union, it will replace the current Customs Code of the Customs Union and international agreements on customs regulation.

The former code was adopted in 2009, when the formation of the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia was in the initial stage. And so many of the realities that emerged after the creation of the EAEU in 2015 were not taken into account in it. In the former code, a significant part of the powers of the customs authorities were transferred to the national level, which led to differences in the mechanisms of customs operations and collection of payments. In accordance with the new code, the customs regulation will be mainly carried out at the union level, and at the national level, the technical aspects will remain mainly. One of the main innovations of the code is the priority of electronic declaration, which will become the basis for accelerated passage of customs formalities and removal of bureaucratic barriers. In addition, the innovations will affect the process of providing preliminary information to customs authorities; terms of release of goods; the list of goods for which the issue is applied before the filing of the declaration; Institute of Authorized Economic Operators (AEO), etc. The Code will also affect such areas as the purchase of goods in foreign online stores and the rate of transportation of goods by individuals for personal use.