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When the products of popular brands in Russia appear on sale, it depends on the suppliers: how quickly they can restore logistics, resolve issues with customs clearance, and conclude contracts with retail chains, said Andrey Karpov, Chairman of the Board - President of the Russian Association of Retail Market Experts.

Vendor instead of brand

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is not only expanding the list of goods for parallel imports but is also preparing to update its approach to the formation of the list, the department told Izvestia. They confirmed that they are working on fine-tuning the mechanism in terms of the transition from inclusion in the list of brands to the inclusion of copyright holders. This will simplify the administration of the procedure.

As market participants explained to Izvestia, now the list looks like this: the department indicates a group of goods, then specific brands that can be imported through parallel channels, or, conversely, should be excluded from them. With the new approach, specific brands will disappear from the document - instead, companies will appear that own several trademarks at once.

This work is being carried out by the Ministry of Industry and Trade together with other authorities, including the Federal Customs Service of Russia, the restructuring of the list based on the names of copyright holders is aimed at overcoming the consequences of restricting or stopping the supply of goods or the provision of services by manufacturers, the FAS press service noted. The proposed changes will help eliminate the risks of delaying the import procedure for parallel importers - the final version of the changes in the process of interdepartmental coordination, the antimonopoly service added.

TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov considers this approach to be logical. A particular manufacturer may have not one, but several brands, the official import of which into the Russian Federation has ceased. If the name of the vendor is indicated instead of each specific brand, this will simplify the work of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, customs, and the importers themselves - there will be no confusion about which goods of a particular company can be supplied and which cannot, the expert believes.

At the same time, the range of products that can be delivered to Russian stores will expand significantly, he did not rule out. Such an initiative gives groundwork for the future: if, for example, a manufacturer brings a new brand to the market, it will not require additional bureaucratic procedures to import it into the Russian Federation.

There are a lot of companies managing several brands, says an Izvestia source familiar with several market participants. As an example, he cites the Spanish Inditex, which owns Zara Home, Bershka, Pull & Bear, and others. In the case of electronics, this is, for example, the Chinese ZTE, which produces smartphones, both under the brand of the same name and under the Nubia brand,

Theoretically, it may turn out that if a company starts officially supplying goods of one of its brands to Russia, parallel imports of its other brands will be banned. Therefore, it would be logical to include in the list not just copyright holders, but also their products, which should be supplied to the country, the expert believes.

When finalizing the schemes, if they follow, it is important that the list contains those products that are not currently officially supplied to Russian retailers, Anton Guskov, a representative of the Association of Trading Companies and Producers of Electrical Household and Computer Equipment RATEK, believes.

 Lists of these goods, brands and their right holders must be promptly received by the customs authorities in order to prevent interruptions in supplies. Obviously, in the list it is necessary to indicate not only the right holder, but also his specific products that the importer intends to import, he notes.

Now the parallel import mechanism does not look perfect, says Yury Fedyukin, managing partner at Enterprise Legal Solutions. Given that foreign manufacturers, which may own dozens and hundreds of brands belonging to a wide variety of product categories, continue to leave the Russian market, it is very difficult to manage this process, he admits.

At first, the transition from listing brands to listing their rights holders may even have a negative impact on parallel imports. For example, if the supplier has already established a channel, and even signed a contract for the purchase of a certain amount of goods, he may experience serious losses, and shipments may be disrupted, which the lawyer does not exclude.

Source: https://iz.ru/1481448/vera-kuzmina-valerii-kodachigov/torgovaia-remarka-sozdan-novyi-spisok-tovarov-dlia-parallelnogo-importa