ST. PETERSBURG, December 26. /TASS/. Presidents of four member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) signed its Customs Code, board chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Tigran Sarkisyan said on Monday. The document was not signed by the president of Kyrgyzstan, the official said earlier.

“Presidents of four countries signed all the presented documents, including the Customs Code…Kyrgyzstan signed the Customs Code. Only the declaration of establishing joint foreign economic activity was not signed on the part of Kyrgyzstan,” Sarkisyan said.

The new Customs Code of the EAEU will replace the Customs Code that was adopted in 2009. The document is to lay foundations for switching to the common customs procedures within the EAEU.

It took three years to design the new code. The document envisages new approaches to IT-based customs operations, introduces more convenient algorithm of interaction between business and government agencies, minimizing paper work and meetings. In addition, it unifies customs operations for all countries of the union to the maximum.

Once the new document comes into effect the Eurasian Economic Commission will define price and weight “ceilings” of duty free trade, which should be unified for all the member-states.

On the national level the countries will be able to independently set lower norms of duty free import of goods that are moved as items of mail. The members of the union agreed that from 2018, they will start to gradually lower the celing for duty-free import of goods from foreign Internet stores to the EAEU countries.

In 2018, the limit will be set 500 euros. Import of goods for the sum above the limit of 500 euro will envisage a payment of 30%, but not less than 4 euro per 1 kg. In 2019, the ceiling will be lowered to 200 euros. Above this limit the payment will amount to 15%, but not less than 2 euro per 1 kg. The new Customs Code is expected to come into force on July 1, 2017.

http://tass.com/economy/922566