Vat exemption and import duty |06 March 2013

The Trade Division of the Ministry of Finance Trade and Investment in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Industry would like to announce the following changes to fruits, vegetables (fresh or chilled), meat and fish (fresh, chilled or frozen).

The above mentioned products have been exempted from Vat resulting in a decrease in overall taxes on most of these products, except on those on which import duty (25% for Chinese cabbage and 15% for the others) have been introduced to counter the effect of Vat exemption. This includes 60 items under the Chapters for Meat, Fruits and Vegetables.

As a result of those adjustments the price of these items is expected to remain unchanged (assuming that all other factors remain as is), while the tax effect on some of the aforementioned products have actually been reduced (e.g. fresh meat of lamb and beef) and therefore it is expected that the price of these items would decrease.

The Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment would therefore like to indicate that any price increase on the above stated items being imported into the country will not be due to the introduction of import duty on those products.

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