The Russian government has approved rules for determining the size of investment harbor dues, its levying and application. Decree No 616 of May 18, 2019 has been made public on the Official Internet Portal for Legal Information.

The size of the dues is defined in Russian Rubles per unit of a vessel’s gross capacity that has been specified in the certificate of admeasurement. It is established by a regulatory legal enactment of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service for the purpose of a concrete economic entity making capital investments in the construction and reconstruction of facilities of the maritime port infrastructure of federal property.

The size of dues is determined for every year of the three-year regulatory period.

The size of the dues is calculated due to the necessary amount of financing capital investment in facilities of federal property. Financing has been provided by an economic entity at the expense of extra-budgetary resources in compliance with the investment program approved by the Russian Transport Ministry. The required total size of dues is approved by an act of the Russian Transport Ministry.

The rules for establishing the criteria to facilities, included the capital investment program, which financing is assumed to be made at the expense of investment port dues.

Facilities responding to the comprehensive plan for modernization and expansion of the mainline infrastructure for the period up to 2024 approved by Russia’s Government Decree No 2101-р of September 30, 2018 and (or) the long-term program for the development of the entity which financing is over 300 million Rubles are to be included in the program.

The dues will be levied in the Russian seaports in respect of which such dues are included in the list of harbor dues approved by the Russian Transport Ministry.

The dues will be levied from overseas-outbound cargo vessels, including sea services, apart from ferries.

The dues can be levied from ferries, passenger vessels and vessels of the fishing fleet while including in a program of facilities of federal property designed for servicing vessels of the above-said categories.

The dues are not levied from vessels calling at a seaport without carrying out operations with cargoes and passenger handling, as well as from transit vessels and vessels re-calling at a seaport upon its departure from a seaport under a decision taken by a captain of a seaport or carrying out deviation operations.

Funding received from the collection of dues is subject to transferring to a separate bank account and to be sent by the entity to provide funding for contracts concluded to implement the program. At the same time, every quarter the entity sends expenditure reports to the Russian Transport Ministry.