Ministry of Finance: Amendments to the Customs Tariff Adopted by the Parliament will Promote the Development of Consumer Goods Industry

The Parliament adopted as a basis and as a whole the Law "On Amendments to Section XI of the Customs Tariff of Ukraine on Unification of Import Duty Rates on Consumer Goods" developed by the Ministry of Finance based on the analysis of the State Customs Service and jointly with the industry-specific association Ukrlegprom.

"The law prepared by the Ministry of Finance provides for the unification of import duty rates on consumer goods to accelerate the customs clearance of such goods and promote the development of the consumer goods industry.

This unification provides for the establishment of the same preferential import duty rates on similar consumer goods by reducing (255 subcategories) or increasing (25 subcategories) the current rates.

It is important that the proposed unification does not exceed the bound tariff rates within the obligations undertaken by Ukraine under accession to the WTO," said Deputy Minister of Finance for European Integration Yuriy Draganchuk.

The law proposes to set the following preferential import duty rates:

• 0% on raw materials not produced in Ukraine (yarn, fibers, threads of UCGFEA group 50-53), as well as, according to the proposal of Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, for man-made fibers of commodity items 5505, 5506 and 5507;
• 1% to 8% for finished products - fabrics, felt, woven nets, twine and ropes.

Also, in the process of preparing the draft Law, the Ministry of Finance has taken into account the proposals of the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture on the need to maintain the current preferential rates of 5% for mixed cotton fabrics (code 5211), as these types of fabrics are produced in Ukraine to protect domestic producers.

In addition, it is proposed to increase the full rates of import duty to 10% on consumer goods in those product subcategories, by which such rates are less than 10% (105 product subcategories).

"The implementation of the provisions of the law will promote the development of consumer goods industry by reducing the import duty on raw materials, and accelerate the customs clearance of consumer goods without the implementation of laboratory research - through the unification of rates for similar goods," - said Yuriy Draganchuk.

It should be noted, that the provisions of the law don’t apply to goods produced in countries with which free trade agreements have been concluded.