| Customs Law and Tariff System |
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| 2005-03-24 21:35 |
The new Customs Law that entered into force on 1 January 1999 is based on the EU Customs Code. The same procedure and regimes as those of the EU are applied: release for import; transit; customs warehousing; inward processing; processing under customs control; temporary admission; outward processing; export; temporary export, etc.
The Customs Tariff of the Republic of Bulgaria for 2003 is determined in the Council of Ministers Decree No. 289 of 20 December 2001 and its Amendment No. 285 of 9 December 2002 (published in State Gazette No. 117 of 2002). The Customs Tariff consists of the Combined Nomenclature of the Republic of Bulgaria and the appropriate rates of customs duties. The Combined Nomenclature of the Republic of Bulgaria is based on the international Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System and on the EU Combined Nomenclature. The adoption of both the new Customs Law and modification for another time of the Customs Tariff is a part of the National Strategy for both joining the European Union and the commitment to the WTO/GATT.
Since 1 January 2002 Bulgaria has begun the process of introducing the Integrated Customs Tariff, which is based on the Combined Nomenclature of the Republic of Bulgaria and which includes subdivisions of codes on national level, tariff suspensions, preferences, etc.
For imports of industrial goods from countries with the Most Favoured Nation status, the average rate of duties in the 2003 Customs Tariff is 8.62% and the weighted average rate (based on import data for the first ten months of 2002) is 7.73% . The duty for industrial goods imported from EU, EFTA and CEFTA countries is zero. A large number of industrial commodity groups, such as energy sources, raw materials, medicines and others, are treated with zero rate of customs duties.
The Customs Tariff and its annexes provides for the following basic types of rates:
· Conventional, applied to commodities coming from countries to which Bulgaria granted the Most Favoured Nation clause (WTO as well as other countries);
· Reduced, applied to commodities originated from the EU, EFTA and CEFTA countries, Turkey, Macedonia, Estonia, Croatia and Israel;
Preferential, applied under the General System of Preferences for commodities listed in separate annex, coming from the developing countries (70% of the conventional rates) and from the least developed countries (suspension of rates).
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