WARSAW: A significant number of Belarusian tourists has declined in Poland according to Polish Customs as the number of issued tax free forms also fell in comparison to the same period last year.
Customs services at border crossing points in the Podlaskie Voivodeship (car crossing points Kuznica, Bobrowniki, Polowce, railway crossing point Kuznica and tourist crossing point in Bialowieza Forest) registered 91,199 tax free forms from 1 January 2015 to 8 February 2015.
Tourists (mainly Belarusian citizens) brought out goods worth 70,003,997 zloty (more than $18 million) for that period, Maciej Czarnecki from the customs office in Bialystok says.
It is worse than Polish customs officers expected. From 1 to 22 December 2014, the number of registered tax free documents was 901,107, but the total cost of goods was the almost the same – 75,682,043 zloty (more than $20 million). It is not strange, because December is the time for traditional Christmas shopping and most shops were closed in the first days of January.
It turned out that the best month in the number of purchases made by Belarusian shoppers in Poland was November 2014, when 116,460 tax free documents were registered and the total cost of goods exceeded 90,500,000 zloty (more than $24 million).
Belarusians went on shopping in Poland more often in January 2014 than now. Maciej Czarnecki says shoppers got 93,512 tax VAT return forms from 1 January to 8 February 2014.
These data allow calculating that the cost of the goods purchased in January 2014 was 84,607,521 zloty (about $22.5 million).
In 2015, the total cost of purchases fell almost 15 million zloty, or about 4 million dollars in comparison to the last year.
