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Government to consider bill on ratification of petroleum products supply to Tajikistan

MOSCOW, December 03. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian government’s legislative commission has approved a bill on the ratification of the Russian-Tajikistani intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the sphere of supply of petroleum products to Tajikistan. The Russian government’s official website reports that the document, submitted by the Russian Foreign Ministry jointly with the Energy Ministry, will be considered at a cabinet meeting.

The government said that this agreement was part of a package of documents that also included an agreement on the conditions of deployment of Russia’s military base in Tajikistan and a labor migration agreement. “In general, the signing of this package is aimed at strengthening integration ties between Russia and Tajikistan,” the government stressed.

The document provides for the exemption of Russia from export customs duties on petroleum products supplied to the country within the limits of Tajikistan’s domestic consumption. The exemption list includes motor petrol, diesel fuel, jet engine fuel, burner fuel, bitumen and bitumen mixtures, liquefied hydrocarbon gases, petroleum coke.

“The agreement determines the sides’ competent authorities that coordinate the activities aimed at its implementation — the Russian Energy Ministry and Tajikistani Ministry of Energy and Industry that before October 1 every year agree on the domestic consumption volume of petroleum products in the republic for the next calendar year and sign indicative balances on them (one million tonnes for 2013),” the government said.

Meanwhile, the document sets a ban on the re-export of the petroleum products, supplied to Tajikistan duty-free and the Russian side’s right to suspend duty-free supplies if such facts (of re-export) are revealed.

“The agreement guarantees the inviolability of property of Russian business entities working in Tajikistan within the framework of an agreement on the full and unconditional protection of property and inadmissibility of its expropriation,” the RF government said.

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