Board of Eurasian Economic Commission for Europe – the management body of Custom Union (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan) has decided to exclude the fresh, chilled or frozen pork, poultry meat and processed products from the list of imported goods from developing and least developed countries with the special tariff preferences.
Tariff preferences were set at the level of 0.75% for the products from developing countries, and 0% – for the products of the least developed countries.
“Since after Russia’s accession to the WTO, import duties within the quota was set to zero or significantly reduced, we decided to exclude these goods from preferential list,” explained the representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Granting of tariff preferences for goods imported outside the quota contradicts the meaning of the tariff quotas,” commented Minister of Trade Eurasian Economic Commission, Andrew Slepnev.
Earlier, Russian Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov estimated that the Russian agriculture losses from tariff preferences is more than 7 – 8 billion rubles (US$ 235-265 mln). It mostly benefitted African and some Asian countries.