OREANDA-NEWS. On January 07, 2009 President Alexander Lukashenko has signed Decree No 10 ‘On Introducing Amendments and Additions to Decree No 68 of the President of the Republic of Belarus of 8 February 2008’, reported the Official website http://president.gov.by.

Decree No 10 provides for extending until 31 December 2009 the temporary reduction of customs duties on the imports of textile from the EU countries, Turkey, Switzerland and Principality of Lichtenstein.

On 31 December 2008 expired the validity period of the reduced rates imposed through Presidential Decree No 68 ‘On Setting the Rates of Customs Duties on the Textile Goods Imported to the Republic of Belarus’. The Decree ensured the implementation of the agreements between the Republic of Belarus, on the one hand, and the EU and Turkey, on the other, on reducing the rates of customs duties on the imported textile goods originating in these countries in exchange for increasing the quotas on the export of Belarusian textile goods.

The main aim of the reduced rates was to create the necessary conditions for boosting Belarusian textile exports to the EU and Turkey.