State regulation of foreign economic activity meets the interests of society as a whole, since it affects all the economic and social spheres of life in the country, all its regions, exerting a tremendous influence on them. The basis of the state management of foreign economic activity is the use of economic and legal levers, which are direct and indirect mechanisms for controlling economic processes. Various aspects of foreign economic activity are regulated by the state through the banking and budget systems, government orders, and customs. Also, state planning, economic forecasting, and other management functions serve this purpose.
One of such instruments of state administration is customs and tariff regulation. Its main strategic task, as well as the entire foreign economic policy of the state, is to create the most favorable conditions for the development of domestic business. In addition to factors of national economic development, customs and tariff regulation is aimed at managing the processes of international economic life that affect the interests of the country.
Customs and tariff regulation is regulated by customs legislation and is carried out in full accordance with its requirements. Customs, in turn, is a combination of tools and techniques aimed at compliance and implementation of all necessary measures for the implementation of full-fledged customs regulation. This implies control by the customs authorities over the implementation of laws and regulations on the ban and restrictions on the import / export of certain goods and groups of goods, as well as their transit through the country.
Tariff regulation has two main functions - protectionism, which means protecting domestic products from competition from foreign producers; and fiscal, which is aimed at replenishing the state budget.
Customs tariffing is present in the arsenal of all countries of the world. At the present stage of development of foreign economic relations, customs and tariff regulation is unified on the basis of a harmonized system of descriptions and coding of all goods, which greatly simplifies the tariffication system in different languages and the comparison of duty rates for identical goods.
The state gains the more weighty arguments and ample room for maneuver when negotiating mutual tariff concessions, the more goods are present in its import customs rates. The use of customs tariffs with optimal duty rates has several indisputable advantages. So, if the state is able to influence the level of world prices, optimized customs rates can bring it a very tangible profit. The introduction of optimal tariffs is always better than economic passivity.