Excise tax on some goods imported into Uzbekistan was upped on April 1 in accordance with the March resolution "On restoration of order in export and import operations" signed by President Islam Karimov. Some new articles were included in the list as well. Here is the list of imported goods in question:

Excise taxes on imported goods were raised twice in Uzbekistan in 2004. The matter concerned ice-cream, soft drinks, juices, cream, yoghurts, kefir, jewelry, furniture, air conditioners, refrigerators, TV sets, mascara, chewing gum, meat, and chicken thighs.

A lot of other imported good are already subject to excise tax amounting to between 5% and 100% of their customs cost. The list includes spirits, cigarettes, coffee, juices, clothes, office equipment, audio- and video recorders, cars.

Customs duties on imported live poultry rose from 5% to 30% and frozen meat from 10% to 30% on April 1.

Whenever a consignment was placed at the customs terminals for provisional storage in advance, the old excise tax and customs duties will remain valid until May 1.

The regime of import regulations currently existing in Uzbekistan is called "restrictive and complicated" by the International Monetary Fund. There are excise taxes and customs duties, the latter amounting to between 5% and 30%. When all of that is paid, there is also the matter of the VAT (20%) that has to be addressed.

Customs duties are doubled for the goods imported from the countries Uzbekistan does not have favored trade partner accords with. At the same time, they do not apply at all to the goods from the CIS countries with which Uzbekistan has accords on a free trade regime. Whenever the goods made in the third countries are re-exported into Uzbekistan, there is an additional tax (20%) to be paid.

As far as private importers (the so called shuttle vendors) are concerned, along with everything else they are supposed to pay a special duty - 70% for commodities and 40% for foodstuffs.

These regular rises of excise taxes and customs duties are ascribed to the policy of support of domestic manufacturers. The matter concerns the goods and commodities whose analogs are produced locally. The government is trying to spare local manufacturers competition and encourage consumers to buy locally-produced goods.

There is another motive at play here. The matter concerns the intention to beat down the demand for hard currency in procurement of the articles that are not socially important. For example, excise tax applies to the so called luxury items even though they are not produced in Uzbekistan - coffee, mascara, chewing gum, household appliances, pet food, etc.