On December 27, 2019 the government approved amendments to the regulation on how to declare the customs value of goods. According to the amendments, the process for the declaration of the customs value, the declarant (the operator) will be informed by the inspection with regard to the legitimate reason for non-acceptance of the price stated.

At the same time, the process of presenting additional evidence in support of the stated price will be improved. Thus, the economic operator is given the right of reply when he does not agree with the decision of customs. It will be able to request the basis for calculating the customs value determined by applying the Reserve method. At the same time, if customs does not accept the declared value, the trader will have 4 hours to submit additional corresponding evidence.

The procedure for declaring the customs Value in a closed-door meeting of the Economic Council to the Prime minister in the summer of 2017, when the business community has been alerted to a number of challenges in the process of determining the value of the goods at the customs value by the customs staff. That’s when the businessmen claimed that, often, the value of the goods determined by the inspector, goes far beyond the price of the goods declared by the importer, and the determination of the value of the same commodity will differ from one border crossing point to the other.

At the request of the Council, which exercises the powers of the National Committee on Trade Facilitation, the experts of the International finance Corporation the World Bank Group, has made an assessment of the situation, and then they came out with a series of recommendations. The proposals of international experts and representatives of business associations were subsequently included in the draft of the amendments to the Regulation.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is  supported  by  the  European  Bank  for  Reconstruction  and  Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund, and the World Bank Group project “Investment Climate Reform”, funded by the Sweden.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund.