Kazakhstan zeros mobile phone import duties

Import duties on mobile phones will be lowered from 5 percent to 0 in Kazakhstan, KazTAG reports citing head of customs incomes office of Astana customs control department Zhaslan Yesmukhanov. "The duties will remain unchanged for equipment and electronic devices, however, they will gradually go down for some goods starting from 2013. The duty on mobile phones will be reduced from 5 to 0 percent starting from January 2013 and the duties on computers, both desktops and laptops, will go down from 10 to 9 percent by 2015. Import duties on DVD-players will be lowered from 15 to 8 percent by 2016 and the duties on LCD-monitors will be reduced from 20 percent to zero by 2015," he said at the meeting of the consultation council on improvement of the customs affairs. According to him, customs duties will be gradually lowered for other types of equipment as well. The duties on tele-communication equipment that currently stand at 5-10 percent will be reduced to zero by 2013-2015. Yesmukhanov said that this decision was made by the Eurasian Economic Commission. Speaking about food duties he pointed out that duties on imported cucumbers would be lowered to 15 percent, but would not go below 0.08 Euro per 1kg all year round, whereas they used to be set at 15 percent but not below 12 Euro per 1kg for the period from May 16 to October 31. According to him, the slowest lowering that Eurasian Economic Commission decided on were the duties that would be lowered over an 8 years period and the duties on cars, helicopters and civil aircrafts that would be take 7 years to be gradually decreased.