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New Blow To Business: Belarus’ Car Market Yielded To Russian Dealers

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New Blow To Business: Belarus’ Car Market Yielded To Russian Dealers

On January 1 the technical regulations of the Customs union “On wheeled vehicles security” comes into force.

It could bring more problems to business than the technical regulations concerning consumer goods, which had caused resentment of sole traders. It has been stated by the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Scientific and Industrial Association Siarhei Varivoda at the session of the Council for Entrepreneurship development on December 2, BelaPAN informs.

In particular, the document imposes mandatory certification of cars imported from outside the Eurasian Economic union. As said by Varivoda, “some experts” have added to the text a discriminatory norm, according to which only residents of the Russian Federation could be applicants for assessment of vehicle conformity. “A national dealer does not have a right to sell goods without this paper, but only a resident of a neighbouring country can receive it. I ask the council to address the Eurasian Economic Commission and ask it to eliminate this part from the technical regulations, as contradicting with the EEU agreement, as it excludes the principle of equality of economic entities in our union,” – said the deputy chairman of the BSIA.

Varivoda specified that the requirements of the technical regulations are covering not only cars, but also spare parts, and dealers would have to possess conformity certificates for them since the beginning of the next year. “Otherwise the entire sphere of auto maintenance services is to stop since January 1,” – he said, adding that 12 groups of car spare parts require certification at the national level now, and since January 1 their number is to grow to 118 items. At the same time, as said by Varivoda, there are no, or only a few accredited laboratories in Belarus, where the necessary tests could be performed.

The deputy head of the BSIA noted that imposing the norms of the technical regulations would play into the hands of Russian dealers, directly selling cars in Belarus, but would have a negative impact on the Belarusian business. According to his knowledge, in the 9 months of 2015, 45% of sales in the new cars market of Belarus have been performed by Russian dealers, while in the analogous period of the previous year the figure was less than 10%. “This year the national trade received about $4 trillion less than its due in this group of goods, and the VAT from this sum was almost $700 billion, though they were received by the budget of a different country,” – Varivoda said.

He expressed regret that the technical regulations, passed by the Customs Union, “are not strained through a sieve of expert examination at the national level,” and as a rule, business community knows little about them until they come into force.

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