Imported goods that have not passed customs clearance may pose a danger – Orlovsky

This year, about 800 attempts to import goods into Belarus without customs clearance totaling about 76 million were stopped. Chairman of the State Customs Committee Vladimir Orlovsky said this in the evening broadcast of the TV channel “Belarus 1” in the program “Conversation with the President”, writes sb.by.

The Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus explained what gray imports are:

- This is the import into the country of goods that either did not pass customs clearance at all in the EAEU countries, or were imported somewhere in addition to customs control. What is this phenomenon? This is a direct harm, firstly, to legal importers who customs, pay mandatory payments and, accordingly, with all these allowances, then sell the goods. Naturally, those who imported goods illegally, he does not have this burden, he has a better price. But it's not fair. That is, it is not replenishing the budget and it is harmful to legal importers. And, more importantly, the import of foreign goods from third countries without customs clearance is harmful to our producers of the same goods.

Therefore, as Vladimir Orlovsky emphasized, one of the main tasks of the Customs Committee is to counteract the direct import of gray imports. It can be imported from the external border, from the west, where there is all the infrastructure, checkpoints, scanning, the whole complex. And from the east:

- On the eastern border (including the Belarusian-Russian section of the border), we work as mobile groups, according to operational information, to understand the situation – where and what can be imported on the main roads, on secondary roads. And here we are also working to prevent the illegal import of goods into the Republic of Belarus. I can name such figures: this year, about 800 such violations were stopped, totaling about 76 million rubles. All these goods, after detection, were naturally subject to appropriate taxation with the receipt of due contributions to the budget. This work is important and we will continue it. If the goods go through the western direction, it is subject to customs clearance and customs control both directly at the border and in logistics centers. And if from the eastern direction, these are mobile groups that prevent imports directly along the Russian border. Already detained goods are placed for registration in customs warehouses, temporary storage warehouses, and then the process of their legalization is underway.

According to the head of the Customs Committee, for the most part gray schemes are used to import industrial goods, household appliances, clothes, shoes into Belarus:

- I would like to pay attention to the safety of our citizens when purchasing such goods. If goods are imported in gray, that is, without legal registration, they are sold, of course, not quite legally – somewhere through online stores, somewhere in the markets. And the safety of such goods is not checked by either certification services or other authorized structures. Therefore, this is the second and perhaps even greater risk from importing gray imports into the country.

Vladimir Orlovsky noted that it is the customs legislation that is most regulated in the Eurasian Union at the level of the Eurasian Economic Commission - both the Customs Code and the decision of the EEC Council, the intergovernmental council, the interstate council - a whole complex of documents. In the preparation of these regulatory documents directly involved business:

Belarusian business entities, the Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus emphasized, are definitely the most active and together with us are developing these regulatory documents.