OREANDA-NEWS. June 04, 2010. Following the sitting of the Customs Union Governing Body held in Saint Petersburg, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an ultimate agreement enforcing agreements drafted earlier with the purpose of establishing the Customs Union.

Bilateral agreements designed to create a common customs space, remove customs boarders and abolish customs clearing of cargoes will come into force starting from July 1, 2010. The common customs space is to be initially formed by Kazakhstan and Russia to be followed by Belarus later on.

Through strenuous work Kazakhstan and Russia have settled almost all the disputes and worked out joint solutions. Now Kazakhstan enjoys equal representation in the Customs Union Committee, the supranational body in charge of regulation of customs tariffs within the Customs Union. All the decisions of this body on changing tariff rates, introducing protective measures with regards to third parties and other decisions will be taken on consensus basis only.

Besides, Kazakhstan citizens are very sensitive to customs duties levied on imported cars. We have agreed on a special mild regime for Kazakhstan; however, these mild duties cannot be applied in case of cars being further sold to Russia. Customs duties will also be higher for citizens importing two and more cars within a calendar year.

This transit period will be in place before signing of respective documents to establish the Common Economic Space, which is before July 1, 2011.

Another major result of our talks is a transit period to preserve mild customs regimes for special economic zones. We have agreed that the mild customs regime currently in place will remain in effect through 2017 for country residents [to be] registered in the special economic zones up to January 1, 2012.

Initially our partners insisted on abolishing the mild duties for special economic zones, but to ensure their investment attractiveness we have safeguarded exemption of the special economic zones players of customs duties.

Apart from that, we have agreed on a transit period for customs duties on aircraft. The current customs duty within the Customs Union is 20%. Meanwhile, the Russian aircraft-building sector cannot immediately provide our airlines with a sufficient fleet of state-of-the-art aircraft. Therefore Kazakhstan airlines will be importing aircraft at zero customs duty. The period of this measure is to be further agreed on.

Thus, approaching the new stage of its development, Kazakhstan has done its best to safeguard its national interests.