The measure, announced Tuesday by the Federal Phytosanitary Inspection Service and the Federal Customs Service, calls for vehicles to be checked twice — once at the border and once at their destination. The list of vehicles subject to inspection includes ordinary cars and trucks, as well as tractors and several types of specialized vehicles ranging from mobile cranes to fire engines.
Vehicles that do not pass a visual inspection could be held for up to 20 days, Natalia Puchkina, a spokeswoman for the phytosanitary service, told Vedomosti. Reasons for not passing inspection could include certain insects, plants or types of soil being found on the automobile.
In a press conference, the customs service said that all customs posts have received orders not to clear vehicle imports without authorization by the phytosanitary service.
Phytosanitary inspection of vehicles is an international standard, said Puchkina.
“Our research has shown that dangerous pests can come into the country, specifically in the tires and crevices of old vehicles.”
In 2007 and 2008, there were 4,290 cases of equipment containing “biological material and soil with insects alive and dead,” the phytosanitary service web site said. In 14 cases, dangerous specimens were uncovered and quarantined, including the Asian cotton leaf worm, the American white butterfly, the gypsy moth, and the Japanese beetle.
Major vehicle retailers did not foresee any problems arising from the regulations.
For instance, Blue Fish, a Rolf Group company, currently deals only with used vehicles from the domestic market and considers that such vehicles will be enough in the future, said Vardan Dashtoyan, executive director of Rolf’s retail unit.
Smaller retailers, however, saw things differently.
“This is the latest barrier to used foreign vehicles entering Russia,” said the owner of a small Moscow used-vehicle dealership. “We already pay protective tariffs, and now there are more extortions. As practice has shown for importing other quarantinable products, the phytosanitary service does not have enough time to manage the processing of documents and recommends that applicants seek the assistance of commercial firms, which charge high rates for their services.”
An official at the phytosanitary service said the organization was doing everything within the bounds of the law and that people only turned to intermediary firms on their own initiative.
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