"Atameken" urges the Russian competent authorities to ensure equal access to services of sea, river ports and transport terminals, regardless of country ownership

As you know, among the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union only the Russian Federation has ports with access to the world's oceans. During the development of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union there was provided an obligation of Member States to adopt regulatory rules, ensuring equal access to sea and river ports and transport terminals, regardless of country origin. Today, however, the issue of access to ports is still open and highly relevant.

"Taking into account that sea transport is the cheapest means of transport, its value in some sectors of the economy is a determining factor in the consistency of the export development. The issue of access to the Russian ports is the most acute for the coal industry of Kazakhstan, which is one of the most important resource industries of the Republic", - says Deputy Chairman of NCE RK "Atameken" Dana Zhunusova.

This is due primarily to the reduction in consumption on the traditional Kazakh coal sales market, which is the Russian Federation, and, as a consequence, the geographic and commodity diversification of coal exports due to deep processing.

By the condition on 2015, the volume of proven coal reserves in Kazakhstan amounted to 33.6 billion tons, which puts our country in eighth place in the world reserves of this mineral.

The total volume of coal production in Kazakhstan amounted to 102.2 million tons in 2015 (excluding coal concentrate), the total exports of coal - 27.99 million tons (FEACN code 2701), of which 23.89 million tons were exported to CIS countries. More than 21.5 million tons were exported to Russia and non-CIS countries - 4.1 million tons.

Compared to 2011 (24.6 million tons), coal exports to Russia declined by 3.06 million tons in 2015, the reason for this is the shift of Russian power stations from the use of Kazakh coal to Russia, as well as the transition of certain Russian power plants to gas fuel.

"In this regard, for the period 2011-2015 Kazakh coal miners managed to increase exports to foreign countries with 1.6 million tons in 2011 to 4.1 million tons in 2015, which is a good indicator. Given that the existing potential to increase production of high quality coal in Kazakhstan, we can send for export 7-8 million tons to foreign markets each year, while exports of Kazakh coal to the Russian Federation falls from year to year, access for Kazakh exporters of coal to the infrastructure services of seaports RF is vital", - emphasizes Dana Zhunusova.

Through integration within the EAEU on 1^st of January 2015 on the territory of the EAEU when transporting export products in the direction of the sea ports of the Member States, the domestic railway tariffs are applied. However, the issue of access to ports still remains open.

One of the reasons for the lack of equal access of domestic entrepreneurs to the sea ports of the Russian Federation is that the Russian Federation has not yet approved the Rules for non-discriminatory access to services in sea and river ports and transport terminals, and this process is delayed for several years.

"Despite the fact that the first draft of the Regulation was developed in 2013, they are still not accepted today. The purpose of this deliberate omission on the part of the authorized bodies of the Russian Federation, according to the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken", is lobbying the interests of Russian exporters and the provision of benefits to Russian entrepreneurs. NCE RK "Atameken" more than once, at different levels, including at the site of the Eurasian Economic Commission, raised the issue about the lack of approved rules in the Russian Federation, which is a direct breach of contract, contrary to its principles and creates a barrier to equal access to services in sea ports and transport terminals of the RF for exporting EAEU Member States.

As a result, On 9^th of August 2016 the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission appealed to the Government to speed up the adoption of the Resolution of the Russian Government on the approval of the Rules of non-discriminatory access to services of natural monopolies in the sea, river ports and transport terminals", - said Deputy Chairman of NCE.

The project is currently being developed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation. According to the law the adoption of normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, the developed document has to pass the procedure of public discussion. The next step is to obtain the conclusion of the Regulatory Impact Assessment in the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, and only after that the draft Resolution is passed to the Government for consideration.

"The Chamber, on its part, in November of last year appealed to the Russian developers represented by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation for an explanation of the current situation regarding the adoption of the draft Regulation. According to the official letter of the FAS, the document is submitted for consideration to the Government. However, as follows from the information provided in due course, a draft Regulation has not yet arrived in the authorized state body for RIA. In addition, according to the algorithm of RIA of draft RLAs, from the moment of completion of the public discussion of the document until the submission to the Government, a minimum of 10 working days are provided for the conclusion of RIA with the simultaneous placement on the official website of the authorized state body. In accordance with the consolidated report of FAS the public discussion ended on 28^th of November  2016. In turn, the information that the draft Resolution is in the Government of the Russian Federation was presented on 5^th of December 2016. Following elementary logic, as well as due to lack of full access to the information, I believe that FAS provides not entirely reliable information", - said Dana Zhunusova.

Taking into account the above, NCE RK "Atameken" encourages competent Russian authorities to fulfill their obligations to ensure equal access to services of sea, river ports and transport terminals, stop to create the artificial obstacles to the approval of the Rules and sabotaging thereby the foundations of the Treaty on the EAEU.