60 percent of Kazakhstan's alcohol traffic in shadow

Photo by Marat Abilov©

60 percent of all the alcohol consumed in Kazakhstan comes from the shadow market, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the head of Department for Economic and Financial Crime of the Agency for Countering Economic and Corruption Crime Zhanat Elimanov. “The Agency has developed a method for calculation of the the shadow market size in Kazakhstan's regions. The method is based on the difference between the real consumption of alcohol (based on the data provided by the World Health Organization) and the quantity of the officially produced alcohol that enters the retail market. Based on the calculations, the shadow turnover is responsible for 60 percent of the consumption in the country. The worst situation has been registered in the regions where alcohol producing plants are officially on standby or submit small quantities of alcohol goods for the reregistration,” Elimanov said at the briefing in the Central Communications Service. According to trade experts, alcohol production is not feasible if the plants are less then 30% loaded, he said. Elimanov said that illegal production of undocumented goods has been revealed and suppressed at 5 plants already. “For example, together with the tax authorities, we suppressed the illegal activities of Vinhouse company producing undocumented alcohol; 670 thousand bottles were seized,” he said. A criminal case was initiated over the violations and last December deputy director of this company was given a suspended sentenced of 1.5 years in prison, the official continued. 392 crimes related to illegal alcohol turnover have been registered in Kazakhstan and over 7 million bottles were seized. “As a result, the excise tax payments increased by 20 percent last year and reached a record high of 23 billion tenge ($153 million). There was also a 15-percent growth in the official alcohol production. That means that the producers started registering real volumes and began getting out of the shade,” he said. By Renat Tashkinbayev

60 percent of all the alcohol consumed in Kazakhstan comes from the shadow market, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the head of Department for Economic and Financial Crime of the Agency for Countering Economic and Corruption Crime Zhanat Elimanov. “The Agency has developed a method for calculation of the the shadow market size in Kazakhstan's regions. The method is based on the difference between the real consumption of alcohol (based on the data provided by the World Health Organization) and the quantity of the officially produced alcohol that enters the retail market. Based on the calculations, the shadow turnover is responsible for 60 percent of the consumption in the country. The worst situation has been registered in the regions where alcohol producing plants are officially on standby or submit small quantities of alcohol goods for the reregistration,” Elimanov said at the briefing in the Central Communications Service. According to trade experts, alcohol production is not feasible if the plants are less then 30% loaded, he said. Elimanov said that illegal production of undocumented goods has been revealed and suppressed at 5 plants already. “For example, together with the tax authorities, we suppressed the illegal activities of Vinhouse company producing undocumented alcohol; 670 thousand bottles were seized,” he said. A criminal case was initiated over the violations and last December deputy director of this company was given a suspended sentenced of 1.5 years in prison, the official continued. 392 crimes related to illegal alcohol turnover have been registered in Kazakhstan and over 7 million bottles were seized. “As a result, the excise tax payments increased by 20 percent last year and reached a record high of 23 billion tenge ($153 million). There was also a 15-percent growth in the official alcohol production. That means that the producers started registering real volumes and began getting out of the shade,” he said. By Renat Tashkinbayev

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