EurAsEC may raise dairy import duties to 20%
MOSCOW. Dec 13 (Interfax) - The Eurasian Economic Commission (EurAsEC) is considering an increase in dairy product import duties from 15% to 20%, EurAsEC Trade Minister Andrei Slepnev said in Moscow Thursday.
"The average duty is currently 15% and we are looking at raising that to 20%, that is, to the level allowed by the World Trade Organization (WTO)," he said.
The proposed hike is being considered on the request of Belarus, he said.
"I do not want to get anyone's hopes up yet, as the negotiations are not easy," he said. "We are trying to build tariff protection so that it can fall within the limits of our WTO obligations and enable our products to be more competitive and efficient."
The proposal to up duties could be drafted by January 2013. "We are discussing this issue in detail and have concluded that analysis needs to be carried out for each position, and we have to see what amending the duty will do in terms of its inflationary impact," the minister said. "We are talking about dairy products such as cheese, butter, powdered milk, the kind of products that are imported and have a considerable impact on our market," he added.
Russia's agreements with the WTO state that the import duty on milk must be lowered by 2015, Slepnev said. This amendment will occur in accordance with the approved schedule, he said.
Speaking at a conference, Slepnev said that EurAsEC is not seeing any critical signals on the market that require immediate reactionary measures.
