Following the recent developments, the Decision of the President of the Republic of Turkey regarding added fiscal burdens on import of certain products originating from the United States was published in the Official Gazette dated August 15, 2018 and No. 30510 (“Decision”).
The Decision calls for added fiscal burdens on 22 separate categories of items originating from the US. The additional tariffs range from 4% to 140%.
“Origin” is defined as the economic nationality of a product, and determination of a product’s origin which is imported into Turkey would be subject to Turkish customs legislation. For instance, in case a product is designed in a country and the parts of this product are put together in another country or the product is packaged in another country, added value of each of these processes on the product is generally taken into consideration for the origin determination. In this regard, it would be useful for companies which will import products to Turkey to pay attention to the origin of the product when they are evaluating the Decision.
According to the Decision, an exemption is defined for the goods that already have a bill of lading to be delivered to Turkey and have been loaded onto transportation vehicles before the publication date of the Decision. The applicable additional fiscal burdens before the Decision will be applied to these products if the customs declaration is approved regarding the import of these products or summary declaration within the scope of the customs regulation is submitted within 45 days commencing from the publication date of the Decision.
The Decision came into force as of August 15, 2018 and will be applicable for the relevant item categories that do not fall within the above exemption.
The additional fiscal burdens target the following item categories.
