“Our expectations are connected with the East and the South”: Vladimir Bulavin, head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, on foreign trade under sanctions

— Vladimir Ivanovich, how did the sanctions imposed by the West affect Russia's foreign trade?

How is the restructuring of logistics routes going now?

- Unfriendly countries have introduced a significant number of sanctions aimed at creating barriers both to the movement of goods and to the possibility of paying for them.

This had a significant impact on Russia's foreign trade.

According to the results of five months, our trade turnover increased by 19% in value terms, but decreased by 7.9% in weight terms.

In addition, the main container lines have left our ports, our carriers are prohibited from operating in European countries.

In this situation, our expectations for the intensification of foreign trade are connected with the East and the South.

• Bulavin on the situation in trade and the restructuring of logistics routes

However, the East is now dealing with the problem of countering the coronavirus, in particular, China.

Therefore, we are actively working to make the North-South transport and logistics corridor more efficient.

In this area, we are actively cooperating with our Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Turkish, Iranian and Indian colleagues.

We have tested the technology of creating green corridors for the passage of goods on the basis of mutual recognition of the powers of economic operators.

Such a corridor for the movement of fruits and vegetables has been created with Azerbaijan, and now we are working on this with the above-mentioned colleagues.

We believe that we have port facilities in the Caspian and Black Sea basins that can be used more efficiently.

In terms of personnel, they have been strengthened, so we can easily cope with the growing flow of goods in this direction.

— How has the list of our main trading partners changed?

“China has been and remains our main partner.

For five months, China accounts for 18% of the total trade turnover.

The list of ten main partners has not changed yet due to the inertia of the process.

But it will change, most likely, towards the east direction.

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- Based on the results of five months, the service transferred 3.1 trillion rubles to the federal budget, while the forecast task for the current year is 6.224 trillion rubles.

We have listed almost 50% of the forecast task based on the results of work for five months of this year.

In fact, we are overfulfilling the plan by 25%.

If the dynamics of trade turnover and payments continue, then we have no doubts that the forecast target will be met.

— How has the dynamics of supplies of goods from abroad changed since the beginning of the year?

Is there an increase in the import of products for parallel imports?

— The list of product groups included in parallel imports by the Ministry of Industry and Trade was approved in early May.

Therefore, it is too early to talk about the results.

A sufficient number of different goods fall under the category of parallel imports.

Since the launch of this regime, if we strictly count by the codes of these product categories, almost 2 billion rubles worth of goods have been imported into Russia.

In general, according to the results of five months, imports fell by 10% in value terms, and by 13% in weight terms.

- Is there an increase in the import of counterfeit products?

— Identification of counterfeit products is a separate part of our technological process of customs administration, so every year we detect a fairly large number of counterfeit products.

In five months, we identified 5 million counterfeit goods and prevented damage to copyright holders in the amount of about 1.3 billion rubles.

• Bulavin on the identification of counterfeit products

We are quite actively using the risk management system, various forms of control, including examinations, to prove the presence of counterfeit products in certain consignments.

- In early May, you talked with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, and the head of the Cabinet called on the Federal Customs Service to help businesses adapt to the conditions of sanctions.

What measures are being taken by the service in this direction?

The government adopted a plan to improve the efficiency of the economy in the face of sanctions pressure.

The plan is quite systematic, about 46 points directly relate to the customs service.

For businesses, financial support measures are the most in demand.

By decision of the government, import customs duties on 1,228 priority import goods have been zeroed out, and tariff privileges have been established for 92 goods of this category.

To date, 11,000 participants in foreign economic activity have taken advantage of this benefit.

They imported more than 1.4 thousand tons of products without paying import customs duties.

Thanks to this measure of support, businesses managed to save about 23 billion rubles.

At one time, the main part of our fleet and aircraft parts were imported as temporary cargo.

Now, due to changes, they are released for free circulation with the use of customs duty benefits.

Since February 24, 185 aircraft and a large number of aircraft parts have been produced, and the amount of benefits in this area amounted to 176 billion rubles.

In general, for five months, the total amount of benefits in the customs sphere amounted to almost 600 billion rubles.

If the current rate of declaration is maintained, then the amount of benefits at the end of the year will be at the level of 1 trillion rubles.

This is essential business support.

• Bulavin on business support

The Federal Customs Service, for its part, has taken a number of steps to reduce the administrative burden on businesses.

We have a subject-oriented risk management model.

We fine-tuned it, and now the green sector, which includes our most trusted participants, has grown by 3,000 people and reached about 15,000. This sector accounts for 80% of all declarations submitted and more than 90% of customs payments.

These participants are subject to the mode of automatic release of declarations.

Now we automatically issue about 35% of all issued declarations, each issue takes 2.5 minutes.

We have abolished weight and size control in order to increase throughput at the borders.

We have also significantly reduced the number of inspections carried out to a level of less than 1%.

We are in constant contact with the business.