New Russian law will hit MAP

Russian is going to apply a utilization fee to all imported cars, including the ones made in Belarus.

The respective draft law as of 8 April 2013 was prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. In the current Federal law “On industrial and consumption wastes” as of 24 June 1998 it is provided that a utilization fee is not applied to vehicles, imported to the Russian Federation from the territory of the member states of the Customs Union in the framework of Eurasian Economic Community and having the status of the goods of the Customs Union (article 24.1, paragraph 6), - Avtonovosti report.

We would remind that Belarus became a member of the Customs Union in July 2010, when the regulations of the Customs Code came into force. In 2012 more than 76 thousand vehicles were imported to Russian from Belarus.

If the draft law of the Ministry of Industry and Trade is adopted, the law will come into force from 1 July 2013. The utilization fee will be paid in Russia by all the importers, and local car manufacturers may instead guarantee the utilization of the produced vehicles. Minsk Automobile Plant, analysts believe, may suffer the most. It imports cargo vehicles and busses to Russia.

As it was reported, the situation at MAP is critical already. The plant has gone for a shorted working week and the salaries of the workers dropped by several times. Such a situation is caused by the fact that the plant’s products are not being purchased.