TIRANA, Oct. 27 – Majority MPs have approved some changes to a concession deal with U.S.-based Rapiscan company, eliminating double payments for the compulsory scanning of goods in Albanian customs, which will mainly benefit the garment and footwear industry and internal customs transit.
Finance Minister Shkelqim Cani said the new changes to the deal will exclude 150,000 customs declarations from the compulsory tariffs, worth 4 million euros, which will be handled by the state budget. The changes come after concerns by the business community of the compulsory payment of the tariff up to three times for the same goods in different customs procedures.
“Goods in the transit regime, goods exiting the customs warehousing regime excluding re-exports, goods in free circulation, transfers from special customs regimes and imports of small consignments of goods of a non-commercial character will be excluded from the customs scanning tariff,” said Finance Minister Cani.
The changes, approved this week in principle by the parliamentary economy committee, will have to be given the final okay by parliament and published on the Official Gazette before entering into force.
Starting Sept. 7, Albanian businesses are being charged for scanning services offered by U.S.-based Rapiscan concessionaire €22 for declarations of more than 1,000 euros with customs authorities and euro 5 for declarations of less than 1,000 euros. The scanning, intended to curb smuggling and tax evasion, has been made compulsory after a review of the concession contract reducing the initial 2013 tariffs.
The new fees, although considerably lower than the initial deal, have caused concern especially for the garment and footwear industry, the country’s top exporting industry, which imports raw materials to process and re-export them.
Importers have voiced concerns over increased costs in the past few weeks, complaining that they are being forced to pay the new fees even in customs points where the service has not been made available and often have to pay twice for the same service as in case of imports from Durres Port and clearance at other customs points such as the Tirana customs.
Last June, the Albanian government withdrew from its decision to cancel a 15-year scanning concession in customs points reaching an out-of-court solution with U.S.-based Rapiscan Systems which was claiming $350 million in a Paris arbitration court over the unilateral cancellation of the concession.
Under the new deal, the fee for declarations of more than 1,000 euros with customs authorities was reduced to 22 euros, down from an initial 39 euros while the charge for declarations of up to 1,000 euros will be at 5 euros.
The renegotiated deal also revised downward Rapiscan’s expected income to a maximum of 200 million euros in its 15-year concession compared to 316 million euros under the previous deal.
