ArmInfo. Individual vehicle importers hold a protest outside the building of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia. They claim that the country's authorities, having transferred the function of customs clearance of vehicles to the city of Gyumri, caused difficulties: the process from a "one" window turned into two - at a distance of 150 km.
So, according to the participants of the protest rally, earlier the customs clearance was carried out in the Noagavit customs office in the capital, after which they could register the car with the traffic police within the city. Today, they are forced to cover a distance of 150 km to Gyumri - they get in long lines all day long, spend the night in a car in the absence of basic sanitation conditions, and then return to Yerevan and again stand in line for registering a vehicle. "The country's authorities decided to organize the process of customs clearance of vehicles in Gyumri without being ready for this in full," vehicle importers said.
In this regard, they demand to organize the process of checking the VIN-code of the vehicle (Vehicle Identification Number) in Yerevan, and not get to the "northern capital" for this. Car transportation to Gyumri and vice versa, according to Gevorg Hovhannisyan, vice president of the organization for drivers of protection, the process is not only costly - approximately 20 thousand drams are spent on fuel alone, but dangerous as well - traffic accidents happen. Vehicle importers hope that Deputy Chairman of the SRC Rafik Mashadyan will hear their complaints and suggestions.
Meanwhile, initiating the construction of the Gyumri custom office, the authorities stated that the car customs will provide services on a "one-stop shop" basis - not only customs clearance will be carried out here, but also vehicle registration and license plate issuance, and it will serve 1000-1200 cars daily . Earlier, ArmInfo reported that by the order of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to build a custom office of vehicles in Gyumri was given a more comprehensive solution - centers of foreign economic activity will be built in Gyumri and Sisian. On July 1, in an interview with reporters, head of the State Customs Committee David Ananyan stated that over time the customs clearance process will be completely withdrawn from Yerevan. "There will be regional centers of foreign economic activity "North" and "South", where in addition to the customs clearance of vehicles, a wider range of functions on foreign economic activity will be carried out," he said.
As a result, a program was launched in Armenia to open a new car customs clearance center in Gyumri. The total cost of the program is 2.2 billion drams. 181 mln drams were allocated at the first stage of construction of the SRC vehicle custom office, and 966 mln drams were allocated at the second stage.