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U.S. Comments on Belarusian Oil Duty
Belarus's imposition of a customs duty on Russian oil underscores the “rotten core” of the country's political regime, according to U.S. State Department official representative Sean McCormack at his weekly press conference in Washington. He noted that, before the conclusion of the contract between Gazprom and Minsk, Belarus received cheap oil from Russia, refined it and sold it at a profit abroad.
He called the imposition of the duty a ploy “for the personal profit of those around the leadership of the Lukashenko regime.” He also said that Russia's use of energy resources as a political tool again is one more reminder of the importance of having alternative sources of supply.
Oil supplies from Russia to Belarus had been free of export duties. At the end of 2006, however, Moscow announced that it would impose a duty of $180.70 per ton in 2007. Minsk responded with a $45 per ton duty on Russian oil transported across Belarusian territory. That led the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade to remind the Belarusian government that the move contradicted the 1992 international free trade agreement ad the 1998 agreement on transit conditions across the territories of the member states of the customs union.
www.kommersant.com
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Photo: AP