Belarus and Russia will continue negotiating the tax maneuver in early 2015, BelTA learned from First Vice Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko during the EnergyExpo in Minsk on 14 October.
“Active negotiations with the colleagues will continue at the beginning of the next year when the budgets have to be formed. We cannot delay the issue anymore,” noted the First Vice Prime Minister.
“For the first time Belarus' budget will keep all the export duties [on the oil products made from Russian oil] to the tune of $2.529 billion. It is a large sum,” noted Vladimir Semashko. “It is determined by today's price for oil”. The official said that there is no idea how long the tax maneuver will stay in place.
In mid-September 2014 Russia decided to change the terms of the extraction, processing, sales, and export of oil and oil products. The government submitted proposals to the Russian parliament suggesting the so-called tax maneuver. The proposals suggest raising the tax on the extraction of mineral deposits, including oil, and reducing export duties on oil and oil products. On the one hand, the price for oil will increase. On the other hand, export duties on oil products will be reduced.
Earlier BelTA quoted Head of the Belarus President Administration Andrei Kobyakov as saying that the tax maneuver had worsened the terms of trade in oil and oil products for Belarus, resulting in over $1 billion in losses.
As a result of negotiations between Belarus and Russia a government-level decision has been made to transfer all the export duties generated by the export of oil products from Belarus in 2015 to the Belarusian budget. Belarus' budget is expected to get roughly $2.5 billion. The sum will fully compensate for the $1 billion in losses caused by the deteriorating trade terms, said the Head of the Belarus President Administration.
At the same time the protocol to the agreement that allows the Belarusian budget to keep $1.5 billion worth of export duties till 2024 will stay in place. Only a small sum will be exempted in 2015. “In other words, the agreement that was signed in May 2014 will carry on in 2016. It is kind of an insurance policy for Belarus,” noted Andrei Kobyakov.
Written by belta.by
