The duty-free shops will work only at airports, in ports, on planes and ships. A part of the duty-free shops from the land border area will stop work when their incenses expire. More exactly, they will cease operations in December 2022, before the new Customs Code that was approved by the Cabinet on August 12 takes effect, IPN reports.

The bill says the new provisions derive from the necessity of fulfilling the commitments undertaken by the Republic of Moldova by signing the Association Agreement with the EU, being also one of the conditions that Moldova must fulfill within the lending agreement on the exceptional macro-financial assistance program Omnibus.

The document suggests adjusting such principled notions as surveillance customs bureau, customs decision, declaration of origin, exporter, re-export notification and others. It lowers the ceiling for withdrawing the license of the customs broker from 2 million lei to 500,000 lei.

The bill also simplifies the conditions for destroying goods that encroach on the intellectual property right and increases the period during which the lawful owner is obliged to destroy such goods from one year to three years.

The new Customs Code meets the legislation of the EU. It is to come into force on January 1, 2023.