Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 8 / Trend I.Khalilova /
The forecast for customs duties in 2011 has been set by the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee at 1.120 billion manat, 1.8 percent (20 million manat) higher than in 2010, the committee's Director General for Financial-Tariff and Currency Regulation, Mirgasim Vahabov, has said.
"The increase in the forecast for the collection of customs duties and taxes for next year has been made against the background of the conservative outlook for imports of goods in Azerbaijan at 2010 levels, which is considered normal," Vahabov said.
He said Azerbaijan has created more than one million new jobs, and, thanks to the opening of production and processing enterprises on the local market, the country has begun to produce goods similar to those imported, allowing Azerbaijan to market and export these products to foreign countries.
"Accordingly, the needs of the country's population are covered not only by imports, but also by locally produced goods," Vahabov said. "From this perspective, the country's dependence on imports is reduced."
Despite this, Azerbaijan imported goods worth $4.022 billion in the first eight months of 2010, which is more by 4.11 percent ($0.159 billion) compared the same period in 2009.
"Although, the import of goods grows, changes can be observed in the structure of imports," Vahabov said.
During the reporting period, he said, the share of imported goods to Azerbaijan from countries with which there are free economic zone agreements was 22 percent of total imports. The proportion of all exemptions on imports amounts to about 50 percent.
"Exemptions from VAT and customs duties are applied under ongoing government programs - for example, when importing goods and equipment for power plant construction, and tourism development," Vahabov said. "In this regard, this year the proportion of exemptions in remained at last year's level."
Meanwhile, the need to re-examine the structure of imports, the integral part of which constitutes equipment supplied to open new enterprises and introduce modern technologies.
In accordance with the law "On Customs Tariff", the equipment is taxed at the commodity nomenclature of the customs duty to zero-rate or at a rate of 0.5 percent.
"In the future, given the pace of economic development in the country, we intend to examine the possibility of reducing customs duty on import of equipment as part of ongoing government programs to zero," he said.
More than three quarters of the State Customs Committee has fulfilled the plan for the collection of customs duties by 100 percent, and the state budget has been provided an enumeration of 730 million as provided in the forecast.
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