Ukraine imposes special duties on Belarusian goods

Ukraine has introduced special duties on Belarusian dairy products, confectionery and beer.

This is done as a response to discriminative unfriendly actions on the part of the Republic of Belarus regarding Ukrainian producers of drinks and food products, UNIAN reports.

The respective decision was adopted by the inter-departmental commission for foreign trade.

In particular, a 55,29% duty has been introduced on milk, cream, yogurts, kefirs, butter as well as confectionary made of sugar, chocolate and pastry, imported from Belarus.

The duty of Belarusian malt beer will be subject to a 60,05% fee inn Ukraine.

Special duties will apply to the named categories of goods up to 31 December 2016.

The commission’s decision comes into force in 10 days after having been published.

We would remind that on 1 May Belarus introduced the institution of obligatory licensing for beers, originating from outside the Customs Union. Ukrainian beer makers called this a discriminative measure and reported that in Belarus they were required to increase the retail price on their goods by over 2 times, which effectively made Ukrainian beer uncompetitive in the Belarusian market. Belarus applied similar measures to Ukrainian confectionery makers.