From the end of January 2023, lumber, sleepers, logs and roughly processed wood can be exported from the Russian Federation by road through four checkpoints on the border with Kazakhstan and Belarus. Earlier in November, the government limited the export of sawn timber and sleepers only to railway checkpoints.

As follows from the text of Decree N2552 of December 30, published by the government on the last day of 2022, it is possible to export timber products under the HS codes 4407 (lumber thickness from 6 mm), 4406 (sleepers), 4404 (stakes, logs and poles) and 4403 (roughly processed timber; exceptions will be timber from softwood and valuable hardwoods).

These types of products can be transported 30 days after the publication of the government decree through the Bugristoye, Ozinki and Petukhovo automobile checkpoints on the border with Kazakhstan, as well as the Krasnaya Gorka checkpoint on the border with Belarus.

Transportation is possible if timber is exported from the Russian Federation to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) or through the territory of these states to third countries. It will also be possible to transport products of the timber industry complex (TIC) through the territory of the Russian Federation from one EAEU country to another or to third countries by road. The decree does not apply to the transportation of timber between the Kaliningrad region and other territory of the Russian Federation, as well as to Armenia.

As reported, in November 2022, the Russian government approved decree N2133, which allowed the export of timber (TNVED positions 4406 and 4407 ) only to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and only by rail. At the same time, export to third countries was not allowed. As a result, some timber merchants were unable to export their products (in particular, the timber industry companies of the Tomsk region announced the accumulation of a significant amount of timber on the border with Kazakhstan and the impossibility of exporting it to Uzbekistan (the main importer of sawn timber from the region) and other countries). At the end of December, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation announced that it had held a meeting with interested departments, where the issue of “the transit of Russian timber through the territories of the EAEU member states for export to neighboring states” was settled.

Source: thetimeshub.in