DUSHANBE, November 21, 2012, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Russian have still failed to negotiate some points of a draft agreement on duty-free fuel deliveries to Tajikistan, according to the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MEI).
An official source at a MEI says that the draft agreement has been improved after a meeting of the sides that took place here in early November.
“The sides, however, failed to negotiate some points,” said the source. “Thus, the sides have failed to negotiate the date of commencement of the agreement, the ban on re-importation of Russian fuels into Tajikistan from the Customs Union member nations as well as the giving of inviolability and preferences to Russian economic entities on Tajik territory.”
Under point 6 of the draft agreement, 1 million tons of duty-free oil products that will be delivered to Tajikistan should not be re-exported to the third countries.
“Next year, Tajikistan’s annual requirements in oil products will be 1.605 million tons. One million tons are planned to be delivered from Russia and the remaining 605,000 tons will be delivered from other countries,” the source noted.
He further added that after the singing of the agreement companies engaged in delivery of oil products to the country would freely operate on the basis of sound competition.
We will recall Tajikistan was exempted from paying Russian tariffs on oil and gas exports from 1995-2010 and Russia cancelled Tajikistan’s tax exemption on May 1, 2010 that resulted in gasoline prices rising in the country. A sudden spike was reported in May 2011, when export duty for Russian gasoline rose 44 percent as compared with April 2011.
On October 5 this year, Tajikistan and Russian signed here a memorandum on the conditions of Russian oil product deliveries to Tajikistan. The memorandum provides for signing of the government-to-government agreement on the tax-free delivery of Russian oil products to Tajikistan.
Russia reportedly demands that Tajikistan prevent re-export of imported Russian duty-free oil products to the third countries, for example to Afghanistan; otherwise, Russia may annul the agreement and impose export duty on its oil products for Tajikistan again and reduce fuel exports to Tajikistan.
Meanwhile official Dushanbe cannot guarantee that Russian duty-free gasoline will not be re-exported to the third countries. The Tajik side reportedly wants the point banning re-export of Russian duty-free oil products to the third countries to be removed from the agreement.
