Armenia will retain a significant part of customs exemptions within  the EAEU until the end of 2020

ArmInfo.Armenia will retain a significant part of customs exemptions within the framework of the Customs Union of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union until the end of 2020.

At the meeting of May 22, the Committee on Regional and Eurasian Integration of the National Assembly of the Republic of  Armenia issued a positive opinion on the protocol submitted to the  agreement on the creation of the EAEU. As Deputy Minister of Economy  of the Republic of Armenia Varos Simonyan said at a meeting of the  committee, the protocol was signed on December 20, 2019 in St.   Petersburg. He recalled that in 2015, with the entry of Armenia into  the EAEU, a 5-year grace period for exemptions began to be applied in  order to mitigate the negative consequences of rising prices for non-  EAEU imported goods. In 2020, this period came to an end. In this  regard, it became necessary to extend these terms for another year.  Out of almost 900 items of goods that fell under customs exemptions,  293 items related to vehicles were excluded. The protocol will not  apply to these vehicles. Thus, as the deputy minister noted, there  remained 647 items of goods with respect to which customs rates will  not change.  Otherwise, the impact of inflationary processes on the  country's economy would be 0.5-05 percentage points. Using the  previous rates, domestic prices will decrease by 3%, and business  entities will be able to save about $ 30 million.

The deputy minister also stressed that during the year measures will  be taken to create domestic industries, products from which can be  replaced with imported ones. For example, farms are currently  developing dynamically, which have been able to increase the needs of  the domestic market for meat to 26.6%. In 2019, the growth rate in  this area amounted to 11%. The missing volumes can be replenished at  the expense of countries with which there are free trade agreements  or countries that have signed agreements with the EAEU. For example,  rice is not produced in Armenia; the presence of an agreement with  Vietnam will make it possible to resolve this problem.