Photo by Yuri Maltsev

A car trader attaches a red ribbon to his ‘for sale’ Japanese car on Tuesday in Vladivostok to participate in a protest staged by imported car dealers against introduction by Russian government of EURO-2 standard this September. The dealers lament that their business is being persistently pressed and limited by popping up regulations to customs rules. The new regulation, which is to come into effect Sep. 1, is the recent one in the line of the government’s efforts to choke import of used foreign cars into Russia. All car dealers will be obliged to present a document for each imported car stating that the car corresponds with EURO-2 ecological requirements. However, no offices to conduct EURO-2 expertise and issue the certificates have been launched in Vladivostok yet. Meanwhile, the number of imported cars in Vladivostok accounted to 21,973 in July and is moving to the expected number of 23,000 vehicles in August, customs officials revealed. In case the issue with EURO-2 certificates is not solved, the customs warehouses will get stalled with uncleared cars.