Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Saudi Ministry of Finance announced on Friday that Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority Mohammed Al-Jadaan has approved a number of amendments to the Integrated Customs Tariff Schedule for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Duties will be imposed on certain categories of products as per the amendments which will come into force on October 6 this year. This was revealed in the official gazette Umm Al-Qura. The amended provisions will be applied in accordance with the new tariff schedules.

The new amendments include revising the duty category on a number of goods, most notably natural honey products and chemical compounds. The customs duty category has been set at 5 percent on natural honey filtered from the Manuka flower and other types of natural honey, whether filtered or containing wax pieces.

The amendments also included a two percent customs duty on several chemicals, such as acetophenone, propiophenone, methylacetophenone, benzophenone, and butyl dimethyl acetophenone. A 52 percent duty was applied to other compounds, such as methyl naphthyl ketone and benzylidene acetone, as part of the alignment of the tariff schedule with the decisions of the GCC countries.

The description and labeling of some goods were updated, and formal errors in the tariff schedules were corrected, most notably the inclusion of a 5 percent duty item for fresh fatty livers. The amendments also included the renaming of several types of frozen fish with a unified duty rate of 5 percent.

The amendments also included the inclusion of Indian betel leaf in the customs tariff, while explicitly prohibiting the import of khat was included under the "other plants" section, indicating its complete prohibition.