Certificate of Own Production and Origin of Goods: Purposes, Specifics of Obtaining, Responsibility

The Republican seminar ‘Practical Aspects of Confirmation of Own Production and Origin of Goods’ organised by the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was held in Minsk. The event gathered more than 240 participants – representatives of Belarusian business and state administration bodies.

The issues of obtaining and using the certificate of own production and certificate of origin of goods have always caused a lot of questions among business entities, despite their extensive experience in foreign economic activity. Most often business is interested in such aspects as the purpose of obtaining such certificates, the list of documents required for their registration, methods and scope of application. In order to clarify all these nuances, this seminar was held.

– Certification is one of the most popular services of the BelCCI,’ said Denis Meleshkin, Deputy Chairman of the BelCCI. – We issue more than 115 thousand certificates of origin and about 6.5 thousand certificates of our own production per year. The certificate of origin has two main purposes - export and preferences in public procurement. The certificate of own production has the same preferences in public procurement and the possibility to receive tax benefits, which are provided by the legislation of the Republic of Belarus in special economic zones. At this event we not only shared theoretical information, but also analysed specific cases of enterprises by sectors, by certain types of products on the use of certificates.

Representatives of the state bodies accepting such certificates were invited as speakers to the seminar: the Ministry of Taxes and Levies - on the issues of granting tax exemptions, the State Customs Committee – on the issues of export, simplification of customs control, the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade – on the nuances of public procurement.

The prospects of certification were discussed in a separate block. First of all, it is the digitalisation of issuing certificates of own production and confirmation of goods. Following the adoption of the resolution of the Government of the Republic of Belarus in January this year, certificates are already issued with an electronic digital signature.

The BelCCI goes further and automates this process to make it easier for Belarusian enterprises to obtain certificates electronically. From 1 September this year it is planned to switch to full digitalisation and automation of issuing certificates of origin. According to Denis Meleshkin, there are still some nuances with the certificate of origin, as it is tied, among other things, to the possibilities of a number of countries.

The third block of the seminar is responsibility when using certificates. The topic is very important, because the certificate provides an opportunity to receive tax benefits, exemption from a number of customs duties. In this regard, it is necessary to be careful how to use this type of document.

– We warn enterprises that when using the certificate, all responsibility lies with them. Business entities should control that the criteria that were taken into account for issuing the certificate, which were checked by the BelCCI experts, were fulfilled during the entire validity of the document,’ said Denis Meleshkin.

Artem Shkryl, Deputy Head of the Department for Attracting and Servicing Investors from Europe and America of the Industrial Park Development Company, gave an example of the importance of such a topic. In the Chinese-Belarusian Industrial Park ‘Velikiy Kamen’ confirmation of own production is one of the key conditions for residents to get profit tax relief.

– This is a very significant benefit in terms of doing business. More broadly speaking, obtaining a certificate of own production guides the company to increase the localisation of its activities in Belarus. If this requirement were not in place, we would deal mainly with screwdriver assembly and nothing else. Enterprises are forced to develop their own production, their own developments to meet the requirements set by the legislation to obtain benefits,’ he said.

Electronic certification allows to simplify many procedures. It is more convenient for enterprises, as it allows minimising the time for obtaining, simplifying the submission of documents.

– Conducting such seminars is very useful, because businesses have a lot of questions about obtaining certificates of their own production. Everyone sees their production differently: experts - in their own way, business - in their own way. And these seminars make it possible to provide answers to many questions and guide business in the right direction,’ said a participant of the event.