Uzbekistan intends to introduce Duty Free shops, develop shopping tourism

The Uzbek authorities plan to allow the opening of duty-free shops in historic cities and administrative centers of the regions, Kun.uz correspondent reports citing a presidential decree.

The motive for taking such a step is to develop shopping tourism in the country.

The President instructed the State Customs Committee, together with the State Committee on Tourism, to draft a law on introducing amendments to the Customs Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan by March 1, which would take these innovations into account.

It is worth noting that, at the end of 2017, the State Committee on Tourism and the Spanish company Innova TaxFree reached an agreement on joint development of a strategy for developing shopping tourism and introducing the Tax free system in Uzbekistan.

Tax-free shopping is the buying of goods in a foreign country and obtaining a refund of the sales tax which has been collected by the retailer on those goods. The sales tax may be variously described as a sales tax, goods and services tax, value added tax, or consumption tax.