Mikhail Mishchenko: The unification of customs clearance of Russia and Belarus will not change anything in the domestic dairy market

In a comment to the agency, he suggests looking at the innovation from this point of view.

‘I think there will not be any drastic change, the question of even deeper integration is important here,’ the expert said. ‘In my opinion, we are talking about the economic and, in a sense, political space, which allows us to look at similar processes in the domestic and foreign markets from a slightly different angle. What do I mean by the domestic market? The cheese market in Russia is in short supply, and thanks to the efforts of Belarus during the merger, it becomes saturated. Taking into account these integration processes, in this case we can compare Belarus, for example, with the Altai Territory, a region that is losing its position in the domestic market due to the powerful development of cheese-making in the regions of consumption, mainly the Central Federal District.

When asked what will happen to re-export from Belarus in connection with the unification of customs clearance practices, the expert replied as follows:

‘Companies will find another loophole. In any case, water always finds a way out. I think that re-export will be carried out, in particular through Kazakhstan, including dairy products,. In my opinion, the introduction of customs clearance between Russia and Belarus is more of a political issue.

Earlier, many companies transported goods through Belarus because of zero VAT, which was valid for the supply of goods to Russia. Now it has been abolished in Belarus, but zero VAT has been introduced for exports to Russia from Kazakhstan.