The government of Armenia put on the agenda of its Cabinet meeting on Monday a package of draft laws, pursuant to which road-tax payers who enter the country with trucks registered in Iran shall be exempt from road tax in Armenia, if these vehicles are at a maximum of one kilometer from the Armenia-Iran border in the areas under customs control.
As per the explanatory section of this package of bills, the problem is that Iranian trucks do not enter Armenia so as not to pay the road tax and therefore all related cargo-transportation services are provided in Iran, Armenian agency New.am reported on its website.
Iran and Uzbekistan reached a similar agreement earlier this month to allow tax-free entry for trucks commuting between the two countries. The agreement was reached during the visit of Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi to Tashkent.
Meanwhile, Iran has criticized Turkmenistan’s unilateral decision to increase by 50% the tax on Iranian transit fleet.
“The move taken by Turkmenistan would probably lead to a decline in cooperation in road transportation,” said Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abdolhashem Hassannia in a meeting with Turkmen ambassador in Tehran, Ahmad Qorbanev, earlier this month.
Iran and Turkmenistan are members of Ashgabat Agreement—a multimodal transport agreement signed in 2011 which envisages facilitation of transit and transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.