Law on port zones signed by Russia's President

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has signed a federal law "On introducing amendments to the federal law "On Special Economic Zones in the Russian Federation" as well as separate legislative acts of the Russian Federation in the part of establishment of port special economic zones. The document was earlier approved by State Duma (Lower House) and the Council of Federation (Upper House), reports Prime-Tass.

According to the document, a port special economic zone may be established on the territories of marine and river ports open for international communication and calling of foreign vessels, on the territory of airports engaged in international air shipments, as well as on the territories where such ports are being constructed.

The law stipulates restrictions as to the area of the port economic zone which should not exceed 50 square kilometers. Besides, according to the law, the area of the port special economic zone can be extended by the respective government order.

According to the document, port economic zones shall be established for the period of 49 years, while for other special economic zone the approved period is 25 years only.

Along with the above, the law specifies requirements to residents of the port zones. In particular, if the agreement on operating in the port special economic zone provides for building and reconstruction of the objects of port infrastructure, a resident should invest at least 100 million Euro into the construction of the infrastructure of a new marine port, at least 50 million Euro into the construction of the infrastructure of a new river port and airport and at least 3 million Euro into the reconstruction of the existing ports.

Besides, the law obliges the resident of the port zone to pay at least 30 million RUB as customs duties deposit for the operations connected with stocking, cold storage, wholesale and exchange trade of goods, including excised and mineral raw material, 10 million RUB for goods other than excised and mineral raw material and 2.5 million RUB for other operations in ports.

The customs regime on the territory of the port's special economic zone shall be defined within the framework of the current customs legislation. The document provides for the use of a customs regime of a free customs zone on the territory of the port's special economic zone. Besides, for the residents of the port's special economic zone the federal law provides for a number of amendments such as:

• Soft regime of a free customs zone for the goods, their handling inside the port's special economic zone and withdrawal of the goods from the port's territory to the customs territory of the Russian Federation and beyond it;
• Soft regime of taxation of the residents of the port's special economic zone as to their operations with the goods and services insides the port's special economic zone.

The land site located inside the port's special economic zone can be withdrawn from the owner to satisfy the needs of the state or the municipal body. The withdrawal can be carried out via redemption by the state or sale at public auction according to the procedure stipulated by the articles 279-282 and 284-286 of the Civil Code. The federal bodies of the executive power, executive bodies of Russia's provinces, local government bodies, which are entitled to make decisions on withdrawal of the land sites located within the port's special economic zones in order to cover the state's or municipal needs, as well as the rules of such decision-making shall be defined by the federation legislation.