COVID-19 MEASURES IN TERMS OF CUSTOMS AND FOREIGN TRADE

Remzi AKÇİN
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Nobody could have predicted that the coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 and was called Covid-19 by the World Health Organization and declared a pandemic, would reach this point today. The fact that China announced this virus a year and a half late, countries did not take the incident seriously, a common mind could not be displayed and a solution has not yet been found on how to fight the virus.

It is possible to evaluate the fight against Covid-19 from many perspectives, especially health, finance, work environment, production and security. Due to our subject, we will evaluate the measures taken and facilitations made within the scope of the fight against Covid-19 in terms of customs and foreign trade.

We think that examining the fight and regulations made under four main headings will make the subject more understandable.

I- REGULATION OF THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT

The virus, which was first seen in Iran and Iraq in our geography, was then detected in Greece and Bulgaria and spread around our country. The first case in Turkey was detected on March 11, 2020. The fight against Covid-19 continued day by day, increasing according to developments, and we encountered a curfew again after 20 years.

The first regulation regarding the working environment was made with the Presidential Circular dated March 13, 2020 and numbered 2020/2. With this circular; public officials' travel abroad was stopped, but permission was instructed for public officials who would go abroad in cases of necessity and urgency.

Following this, the following regulations were made regarding the working hours for public officials with the Presidency's letter dated March 13, 2020.

- Those returning from abroad should wait in isolation at home for 14 days and be considered (administrative leave) during this period,

- Pregnant women, those on breastfeeding leave, those over the age of 60, and those with chronic diseases should be considered on administrative leave for 12 days as of March 16, 2020,

- Mandatory services should be carried out with minimum personnel,

- Annual leaves should be used and excused leave should be granted when necessary.

Afterwards, with the Presidential Circular numbered 2020/4 dated March 22, 2020; “Regardless of the type of employment, flexible working methods such as remote working and rotational working can be applied to employees working in public institutions and organizations.”

In this regard; It has been determined that Ministers, Governors and Mayors are authorized and this authority can be transferred.

In terms of customs administrations, this authority has been transferred to the Customs and Foreign Trade Regional Directors. Regional Directorates have organized the measures to carry out the work with flexible working methods without interruption of transactions, taking into account local conditions.

On the other hand, it has been reported by the General Directorate of Customs that services should be provided in customs administrations with no more than three people in a 10 m2 area.

II- MEASURES TAKEN AGAINST BORDER CROSSINGS

It is clear that measures must be taken primarily at border gates in order to prevent the virus outbreak. Faced with an environment where it is surrounded by the coronavirus threat, Turkey took the first measure against Iranian drivers on March 5.

First, measures were increased at the land gates of Iran and Iraq, and then, by following the developments, measures were expanded for the land gates of Georgia, Greece and Bulgaria in accordance with daily developments.

The characteristic features of the measures taken for border crossings can be summarized under the following heading;

- The measures were not initially planned, but were implemented in stages according to the course of the virus outbreak.

- Measures were taken for passenger crossings, and goods crossings were generally excluded from the measures taken.

- Since driver crossings are a problem at road crossings, it was recommended to use railway and sea instead of road in logistics.

- The procedures to be performed for drivers for road and RO-RO transportation were specially arranged.

- International air transportation was partially suspended on March 17 and completely suspended on March 27.

III- FOREIGN TRADE POLICY REGULATIONS

In international trade, the basic foreign trade policies of countries are designed to increase exports and reduce imports. In the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, we see that the opposite of this principle works. The reason for this is to ensure the supply security of the products to be used in the fight against the epidemic.

In this context, the export of some products used in the fight against the epidemic has been subject to the preliminary permission of the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency. Goods that are not given preliminary permission by this institution during their export cannot be exported, therefore, sufficient stock will be provided for the country's needs. For this purpose, on March 5; protective masks, overalls, liquid-proof aprons, protective glasses, medical and surgical masks, medical sterile / non-sterile gloves, and on March 26; The export of ventilators, ecmo, oxygen concentrators, ventilation consumables, patient circuits (anesthesia / ventilator circuits), IV cannulas, intubation tubes and intensive care monitors has been subject to preliminary permission. As can be seen, the export of consumables used in the fight against the epidemic in the first stage and medical devices in the second stage has started preliminary permission.

The exact opposite of this was realized with the regulation made on April 2. Following the sharing that individuals were directly subjected to coronavirus tests, with the Communiqué on the Importation of Medical Diagnostic Kits numbered 2020/19; it was regulated that the customs administrations will require a conformity letter to be issued by the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency in physical or electronic environment in the registration of customs declarations regarding the Free Circulation Regime or Temporary Import Regime of medical diagnostic kits.

The interesting point at this point is that while almost all of these types of regulations are made for import, this time temporary imports have been evaluated within the same scope.

The import of products used as inputs in the production of products used both directly and in the fight against the epidemic is also encouraged in this process.

As it is known, customs duty and additional customs duty rates are determined by import regime decisions. With the changes in the import regime decision made on March 25;

- The customs duty of bulk ethyl alcohol imported "for use in the production of cologne and disinfectant" within the scope of final use has been reduced to "0%",

- The additional customs duty of ozontherapy, oxygenotherapy, aerotherapy, artificial respiration or other therapeutic respiration devices has been abolished,

- The additional customs duty of disposable masks has been abolished.

In order to facilitate the import of certain goods by removing the tax burdens on them, tariff quotas are applied from time to time. The tariff quota application includes a certain time period and is limited to a certain threshold such as value or quantity. Again, tariff quotas have been applied twice during the fight against Covid-19.

- On March 25, 2020; a tariff quota was opened for “certain mineral oils and nitrile group compounds” used in disinfection production to be applied as “0” customs duty until 15.02.2021. A tariff quota of 50,000 tons will be used for oils in tariff 2710 and 60,000 tons for oils in tariff 2926.

- On April 11, 2020; a tariff quota was opened for “imperteks fabrics” to be applied as “0” additional customs duty rate for 5 million m2 of imports for each of the three tariffs until 31.12.2020. The distribution of the tariff quota will be made to industrialists who use the goods as input in their production by the demand collection method.

IV- REGULATIONS MADE IN CUSTOMS PROCEDURES

Our country is dependent on foreign trade and domestic production. X of our imports consist of raw materials and intermediate goods. Therefore, while fighting the pandemic on the one hand, it is necessary to continue production and to continue import and export in order to continue production. This is only possible with the continuous work of customs

Customs procedures are, by their nature, administrations with clear general principles but many details and these details are generally unpredictable. For this reason, hesitations in practice during the fight against the pandemic are eliminated with the regulations made. Therefore, the regulations regarding customs procedures are more numerous. Instead of listing them one by one, we believe that it would be more accurate to touch on the general characteristics of the regulations made

- In our law, force majeure generally stops the periods. In this direction, there are quite a few cases determined in the customs legislation. It has been regulated that these periods will be frozen or postponed for the period in which the pandemic is expected to continue.

- There are quite a few penal regulations in the customs legislation, most of which can be considered severe. Due to the pandemic, regulations have also been made to prevent penalties from being applied in some cases.

- It is seen that acceleration and convenience have been regulated in the transactions and imports of materials and devices used within the scope of combating the pandemic.

- In some cases, such as funerals, more careful and detailed execution of transactions has also been regulated

- In particular, regulations have been made to clarify the situations in which this permission will be applied and in which cases it will not be applied to goods subject to preliminary permission for export.

- In order to carry out transactions electronically as much as possible without going to the customs administration, the applications that can be used up to now have been announced.

- On the other hand, regulations have also been made to ensure that applications are made electronically as much as possible.