Courier services in Armenia suffer losses for toughened customs control
and citizens have to forget about good tradition of receiving parcels
from abroad

2009-01-10 17:02:00

ArmInfo. Citizens of Armenia have to forget about the good tradition of
receiving parcels from relatives in abroad. Now parcel-receiving
procedures is no longer a pleasant surprise but ‘a distressful trial’.
In addition, business of courier services is suffering decline.

Executive Officer of DHL Worldwide Express Office in Armenia Emma
Beluyan told ArmInfo demand for the company’s services suffers decline
due to the compulsory requirement to deliver the cargoes imported into
the country by a courier service to the customs terminal. The number of
complains by recipients is growing at an exponential rate. She said
demand for DHL services in Armenia has fallen 10 percent recently.

Earlier, recipients were just required to pay the necessary fee for
door-to-door delivery and sign the necessary documents of the courier
to confirm the delivery. Now, signature is not enough. ‘In
compliance with amendments to the customs legislation made last year, a
courier company has a right to deliver only letters and documents to
recipients. Any other type of cargo even if it costs just $1 US dollar,
a courier is to inform the recipient of the delivery to Armenia, in
particular, to the customs terminal. Recipients are required to sign
documents informing about the delivery’, E. Beluyan
said. Afterwards a procedure begins identical to the procedure of
customs clearance with usual queue often like the confusion of Babylon.
After a recipient finally reaches its turn to receive parcel, it may
turn out that he is not enough informed of the parcel content and has
to pay certain amount, sometimes not just a symbolic amount of the
parcel value. Thus, any personal goods received by a citizen not for
commercial activity is subject to customs clearance. DHL offers broker
services to the recipients for 35,000 drams ($114) exclusive of customs
duty.