We tried our best, you know the rest: Vehicle importers protest  against the new order of customs clearance of vehicles

ArmInfo. Individual vehicle importers hold a protest outside the building of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia. They claim that the country's  authorities, having transferred the function of customs clearance of  vehicles to the city of Gyumri, caused difficulties:  the process  from a "one" window turned into two - at a distance of 150 km.

So, according to the participants of the protest rally, earlier the  customs clearance was carried out in the Noagavit customs office in  the capital, after which they could register the car with the traffic  police within the city. Today, they are forced to cover a distance of  150 km to Gyumri - they get in long lines all day long, spend the  night in a car in the absence of basic sanitation conditions, and  then return to Yerevan and again stand in line for registering a  vehicle. "The country's authorities decided to organize the process  of customs clearance of vehicles in Gyumri without being ready for  this in full," vehicle importers said.

In this regard, they demand to organize the process of checking the  VIN-code of the vehicle (Vehicle Identification Number) in Yerevan,  and not get to the "northern capital" for this. Car transportation to  Gyumri and vice versa, according to Gevorg Hovhannisyan, vice  president of the organization for drivers of protection, the process  is not only costly - approximately 20 thousand drams are spent on  fuel alone, but dangerous as well - traffic accidents happen.   Vehicle importers hope that Deputy Chairman of the SRC Rafik  Mashadyan will hear their complaints and suggestions.

Meanwhile, initiating the construction of the Gyumri custom office,  the authorities stated that the car customs will provide services on  a "one-stop shop" basis - not only customs clearance will be carried  out here, but also vehicle registration and license plate issuance,  and it will serve 1000-1200 cars daily .  Earlier, ArmInfo reported  that by the order of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to build a custom  office of vehicles in Gyumri was given a more comprehensive solution  - centers of foreign economic activity will be built in Gyumri and  Sisian. On July 1, in an interview with reporters, head of the State  Customs Committee David Ananyan stated that over time the customs  clearance process will be completely withdrawn from Yerevan. "There  will be regional centers of foreign economic activity "North" and  "South", where in addition to the customs clearance of vehicles, a  wider range of functions on foreign economic activity will be carried  out," he said.

As a result, a program was launched in Armenia to open a new car  customs clearance center in Gyumri.  The total cost of the program is  2.2 billion drams. 181 mln drams were allocated at the first stage of  construction of the SRC vehicle custom office, and 966 mln drams were  allocated at the second stage.