Azarov instructs to investigate into problem of export to Russia

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has ordered the government to get to the bottom of the problem with the import of Ukrainian goods into Russia and create a working group to work on the issue, Valeriy Muntiyan, Ukrainian government envoy on cooperation with Russia, the CIS, EurAsEc, and other regional associations, said, Interfax reports.

“The prime minister has ordered the commission to investigate the facts and take appropriate measures to protect domestic producers. If such issues and problems have arisen, they need to be resolved,” the press service for the Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Ministry quoted Muntiyan as saying.

Muntiyan said Ukraine has not received from Russia any official documents confirming violations by Ukrainian exporters of the Customs Union or Russian customs legislation.

“There are currently no documents confirming that Ukrainian commodity producers have violated the legislation of the Customs Union or the Russian Federation. Russia has not provided such documents,” Muntiyan said.

At the same time, Muntiyan believes it cannot be said that the problems with the import of Ukrainian products into Russia are a consequences of some restrictive measures and the problems are more likely caused by customs procedures. “There are some information reports from Ukrainian businessmen on certain problems with customs procedures in Russia in the past few days,” he said.

Muntiyan reiterated that Ukraine has analyzed the legislation base on which Russia could have made the decision. “Indeed, there is a Russian national risk profile at the stage of registration and declaration and a list of enterprises, but we currently cannot say that this [problems with the import of Ukrainian goods into Russia] are large-scale and there are documents confirming that Ukrainian enterprises or goods have been included in this list. We don’t have such documents now,” Muntiyan said.

Muntiyan also said the Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Ministry is now monitoring the situation with the export of Ukrainian goods into Russia and is actively working with the Russian authorities on resolving this problem.