DETERMINATION OF THE ORIGIN OF GOODS IN THE PRODUCTION OF PROCESSING OPERATIONS

Abstract

The present article considers the problem of determining the origin of goods in a situation where they are processed (Articles 2212-2229 of the Civil Law of Latvia – «Contract»). Processing operations are activities with economic impact, that may be applied or not applied to the goods imported into the territory of the European Union. The urgency of the problem concerns the application by the EU Member States and Russia mutual sanctions aimed at restricting trade goods of a particular kind, originating from those or other countries and participating in the relevant activities of trade policy. The problem concerns the fact that the rules of origin establish that the country of origin of goods shall be the country in which the goods were wholly produced or sufficiently processed. If the implementation of the processing operations involved several countries, they are considered as originating from the country where they were subjected to substantial processing in compliance with the criteria of sufficiency, which are used to identify the characteristic properties of a particular type of goods. These criteria relate to the following: 1) a change in the commodity code; 2) the ad valorem share; 3) compliance with the qualifying process conditions (qualifying processes). Many legal sources create a problem of interaction between the rules of law, since the provisions of the relevant international conventions may not be reflected in national legislation. Taking into account not only the urgency of the problem, which is caused by the use of these measures of trade policy, but that the problem is debatable, the goal of the article is to clarify these issues in accordance with the theme.