In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, the head of the Customs Service under the Government of Tajikistan, Abdufattoh Ghoib, revealed on July 18 that the Customs Service has failed to fulfill the customs duty collection target over the first half-year of 2017.
According to him, the Customs Service has failed to fulfill the customs duty collection target over the report period mainly because of the fall in the country’s imports.
“There were also other factors leading to failure to fulfill the country’s customs duty collection target in January-June this year,” Ghoib said.
Among those factors he named the smuggling of goods out of Kyrgyzstan into Tajikistan, difficulties connected with transit of goods through Afghan territory because of unstable situation in that country and heavy transit tariffs introduced by Uzbekistan.
“Besides, decrease in the migrant remittance flows has affected the customs duty collection,” Tajik chief customs officer said.
“Over the first six months of this year, the Customs Service has reached 90.9 percent of the customs duty collection target, collecting only 1.964 billion somoni, which was 197 million somoni fewer than it was originally planned,” Ghoib added.
According to the statistical data from the Customs Service, imports of goods into the country over the same six-month period have amounted to little more than 1.246 billion U.S. dollars, which was 16.9 percent or 253 million U.S. dollars less than in the same period last year.
