A trilateral meeting of customs and tax services of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia was held on the initiative of the Kazakh side on Feb. 15, 2022, in Almaty.

The topic of the meeting was the issues of ensuring effective coordination of the actions of the tax and customs services of the three countries.

The negotiating delegation of the Republic of Kazakhstan was headed by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Trade and Integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov.

“Recently, there has been a trend towards an increase in the gray turnover of Chinese goods in the EAEU market. This trend cannot be left without due attention from the governments of our countries,” Sultanov noted.

He focused on the risks posed by an increase in gray imports: tax shortfalls in budgets, the importation of counterfeit, low-quality and, at times, unsafe products to the markets of the Union.

“This factor negatively affects the development of a competitive market in mutual trade, which ultimately jeopardizes the development of certain sensitive sectors of the economy,” concluded Sultanov.

From Kyrgyzstan, the heads of customs and tax services took part in the negotiations. The Kyrgyz delegation was headed by First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Arzybek Kozhoshev.

The Russian delegation was also represented by the leadership of the customs and tax services, headed by Secretary of State - Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia Alexey Sazanov.

Within the framework of the meeting, a session of the parties was held at the expert level and a meeting in an expanded format with the participation of heads of delegations.

During the negotiations, the parties discussed the results of last year's meeting at the level of the Ministries of Finance of Kazakhstan and Russia with the development of additional measures to implement mutual agreements.

Issues of information exchange between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia were considered. The parties noted that the organization of the interaction process will allow solving urgent issues in the fight against the shadow economy of the three countries.

One of the items on the agenda was the discussion of the problem of reliable reflection of the cost in shipping documents for goods transported in mutual trade. The parties supported the need for a deeper study of this issue with the definition of categories of high-risk exporters and targeted work with them.

Also, during the negotiations, it was possible to agree on the establishment of trilateral cooperation with the participation of the fiscal and law enforcement agencies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia for the coming year.

Following the meeting, the parties noted that the implementation of the agreements reached would give a positive impetus to strengthening cooperation in the customs and tax sphere, which in general would positively affect the economy of the three countries.