Vedomosti: “Importers get a jolt”
Alcohol importers ask Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to postpone by six months the introduction of Customs Union regulations that would make it impossible to import wine into Russia. Otherwise, they warn, Russia may face a repeat of the 2006 wine crisis.
Eleven major alcohol importers have written to Putin and to the head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS), Andrei Belyaninov, Director General of the company Simple, Maxim Kashirin, told Vedomosti. The agreements among the member countries of the Customs Union on common rules of foreign trade licensing and the list of goods that require licensing came into force on January 1. Under the new rules, the import and export not only of hard liquor, but also wine, will be subject to licensing, creating problems for importers, a Ministry of Economic Development official explained. The Russian side put wine on the list in order to persuade Kazakhstan to license the import of medicines. “It was in effect a trade-off,” the official admits. On December 25, Sergei Shokhin, the deputy head of FSC, sent a circular letter ordering customs offices to demand licenses from importers as of January 1.
Customs clearance of wine consignments was terminated on the very first working day of the year, January 11, because importers do not yet have wine licenses, says Mr. Kashirin. They were supposed to be issued starting from January 1 by the territorial departments of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, but they only began to accept applications last week, says Sergei Minayev, chairman of the company’s board of directors. “On Friday, December 15th, it turned out that the application form had been changed, and today, all the importers will be busy rewriting the applications,” he laments. It will take up to two weeks to issue a license, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced.
The businessmen’s letters ask Mr. Putin to postpone the introduction of the new rules until July and to overrule Mr Shokhin’s letter (the same request has been presented to Belyaninov). “The absence of a transitional period and red-tape in the issue of licenses inevitably denude shops and restaurants of imported alcohol,” the authors of the letter warn. Problems will begin as early as February, Mr. Kashirin thinks. If alcohol suppliers have problems, that spells additional losses for the budget, because importers pay taxes and custom duties, he says. The Prime Minister’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov has not commented on the letter because it has not yet been received by the government.
The head of the Union of Participants in the Alcohol Market, Vadim Drobiz, explains that the current situation will hit not only wine importers but Russian producers: at present, 70% of materials for wines and 100% of materials for champagne come from abroad. He puts the total possible shortfall of profits in the alcohol market at no less than $300 million.
Maxim Tovkailo
