The Supreme Audit Chamber (SAC) reported that Kazakhstan lags behind other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the number of goods being labelled.
According to the press service of the agency, the country still lacks an approved methodology to indicate which goods should be prioritised for labelling.
For example, five years ago Kazakhstan introduced labelling for tobacco products, yet illegal products continue to be brought in.
It has become known that last year, law enforcement seized over 16 million packs of smuggled tobacco products, which is 4.5 times more than three years ago.
A problematic situation is developing with footwear. Its imports have declined over four years, but imports of shoe uppers have increased 13-fold. These are being brought in en masse by companies that are not footwear manufacturers.
“The significant annual increase in imports of shoe uppers in the absence of a corresponding volume of their production indicates the possible import of footwear disguised as uppers in order to evade customs duties,” the statement said.
The SAC also reported that the State Revenue Committee (SRC) is not making sufficient use of the labelling system data.
“Currently, the absence of Data Matrix codes on packaging makes it possible to detect tobacco smuggling. However, despite this, in 2024, 246 reports of tobacco smuggling were received via the special mobile application,” the agency stated.
It is noted that none of the reports were acted upon by the authorised bodies.
Recall that in May, a sentence was handed down in Semey to three members of a transnational group that illegally sold cigarettes without identification means.
The organised criminal group, consisting of eight individuals, including three foreign nationals, brought in 9.3 million packs of counterfeit cigarettes from Kyrgyzstan using forged documents. The amount of unpaid excise duty amounted to 2.6 billion tenge.