Economy

There is neither anti-dumping law nor the existing law on competition is properly fulfilled in our country – Levan Agdgomelashvili

General Manager of Omega Group – Tobacco, Levan Agdgomelashvili and the Director General of Tbilisi Tobacco, Zviad Mukbaniani have made a joint statement in response to the TV reportage aired on Rustavi2 TV Company. The reportage said that the local tobacco manufacturers were evading taxes as a result of gaps in the legislation and via some machinations, thus causing loss of 50-million to the state budget.

Levan Agdgomelashvili held a press conference at the Kvira Press Club together with the director general of the Tbilisi Tobacco company, Zviad Mukbaniani, saying that the decision to produce mostly non-filter cigarettes was the outcome of the dumping policy. He said that dumping on the consumer market was the most topical problem for every sector.

“The existence of dumping in our country by foreign importers as well as the negligence of this dumping or its possible encouragement is exactly what we call the legislative gap or fraud”, - Agdgomelashvili said.

According to him, the fact that the competition law does not work properly and that there is no anti-dumping legislation in the country, is the most topical problem at present.

“Along with dumping, the foreign importers are also restricting the distribution of local product on the retail market. Importers drive local product out of local retail networks by means of signing exclusive agreements with retailers. This is what we call legislative gap, due to which the state budget has lost significantly more than the virtual 50 million. Because dumping, the importers pay less VAT and ad valorem part of the excise tax than they would have paid if selling their products at fair prices. I would like to recommend experts to calculate these funds and I assure you that they will find out unbelievably high figures. These are the gaps that need to be improved. Unfortunately, there is neither anti-dumping policy in our country not the law on competition is properly fulfilled”, - said Levan Agdgomelashvili.