Five major agreements, recognized by all participants, were achieved in the framework of negotiations on the Customs Union. This was stated by the head of the Department of Russian Ministry of Finance on tax and customs tariff policy Ilya Trunin on November 10. The official also stressed that Russia kept the right to raise export duties on oil products to the level of oil export duties.
According to Ilya Trunin, the first principle, the Customs Union parties agreed on, is a mutual export duty-free trade.
«The second principle is the right of Russia to increase export duties on crude oil and petroleum products to the crude oil export duty. The third principle is no efforts from the Belarusian side to subsidize its oil refining. The fourth principle is related to the fact that we have the right to subsidize our oil refining, in case of raising petroleum products duty to the oil duty. The fifth principle is the Belarusians charges of duty on crude oil and petroleum products of total exports and their transfer to the Russian budget,» the official said, Prime-TASS.
As noted by Ilya Trunin, the work is currently in progress to technically organize the Belarusian payments transfer to the Russian budget.
Also, as the official says, the question of raising oil products export duties to the level of oil export duties is not seriously discussed, since the Ministry of Energy has not yet set out the relevant initiative formally. «We are not bound with the year of 2011, it is our right, but we are not obliged to use it,» Ilya Trunin voiced Russian position.
Russia’s Unwilling to Subsidize Belarusian Oil Refining, Trunin
The head of the department recalled that by keeping low petroleum products’ duty the Russian Government had been indirectly subsidizing Russian oil refining. «In discussing this issue (of raising taxes on oil products — Telegraf), the government has come to the conclusion that we possibly want to subsidize the Russian oil refining, which can’t be said about the Belarusian oil processing, and acting within Customs Union, we won’t be able to selectively adjust the tariffs for Russian and Belarusian oil products,» Ilya Trunin said. As a result, the official said, it was decided to let Russia change fees.
The head of the Department of Russian Ministry of Finance on tax and customs tariff policy added that the government had earlier taken the opposite decision of the equalization of dark and light oil duties to bring them up to 60% of export oil duties by 2013. Thus, according to this decision, the duty on light oil products will be significantly below the current levels. As the official says, a tariff unification graph is being currently developed in the Ministry of Energy.
Ilya Trunin stresses that the Russian government has no aim to maintain all the existing refineries. Oil Refining is such a broad concept that if we look upon it as just the division into light and heavy oil, which is primary processing, so we don’t have such a problem (to maintain all refineries),» Russian official said.
«On the contrary, to my mind, it’s excessive to maintain a large number of refineries with primary processing,» Ilya Trunin said. According to the official, speaking on the development of oil processing industry, the Russian president and Prime Minister see it as enhancing its quality to a new level. «It’s impossible to solve this problem by keeping low taxes,» the head of the Treasury Department of the Russian Federation.
