Up to 500,000 tons of flour are smuggled into Kyrgyzstan annually. Deputy Ekmat Baibakpaev announced this today at a meeting of the Parliament.
According to him, over the past five years, flour production in the country has decreased three times. If in 2014 the official import of flour was 460,000 tons, then in 2018 — only 78,000 tons.
«At least 3,000 of our citizens who worked at the mills lost their jobs. Most of them left the country to find a job. Probably only we can do this with our industry. As of today, 80 percent of the flour is imported from Kazakhstan. We support its economy by closing our flour mills. Not a single flour mill has fulfilled the plan this year, there are no tax revenues — everything stands idle,» Ekmat Baibakpaev said.
He recalled that earlier there was a bill that exempted grain imports for flour production from VAT, but it was abolished. There was a bill on mandatory enrichment of flour and liability for import of unenriched flour. But it was not included into the new codes.
«If you look at the 500,000 tons of flour that are smuggled into the country, how much VAT do we lose? Our tax authorities can not find the means. I can find you 1 billion soms. To do this, we need either open own production, or put a normal barrier on the border,» the deputy said.
