06 июля 2024 — 09:38
The European Union (EU) may impose import duties on goods from a number of Chinese marketplaces at the end of July, the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing three anonymous sources, Vedomosti writes.
The official pretext in the article is the desire to stop the flow of cheap "low-quality goods" to the countries of the European alliance. In particular, we are talking about the cancellation of duty-free orders at a threshold below 150 euros from sites such as AliExpress (owner of Alibaba Group), Temu (the international version of the Chinese giant Pinduoduo) and Shein (headquartered in Singapore since 2022). In 2023, imports of the described goods to the EU amounted to 2.3 billion euros.
Formally, the new rules will apply to any online stores that ship their goods to the EU directly from outside the bloc. But in practice, this will primarily affect sellers from China, since, for example, Amazon, based in the United States, usually uses sellers from Europe.
At the same time, it is argued that it is economically advantageous for the Chinese to send "cheap goods" by air due to "subsidizing" postage. At the same time, the total turnover of goods online in the EU is growing rapidly.
The EU previously estimated that in the period from 2022 to 2023, the number of sales of unsafe goods increased by 50% from the mentioned marketplaces. First of all, we are talking about cosmetic products, electrical appliances and clothing. Thus, the control purchase of 19 toys by Toy Industries of Europe in February 2024 at Temu led to the conclusion that "none of them meets EU standards", and 18 pose a real threat to children.
Another measure currently being considered in Brussels may be the mandatory registration of large trading platforms for paying VAT on all goods online (while all parcels sent to EU countries are already subject to this tax from 2021).
In addition, on July 4, the European Commission is likely to approve an increase in preliminary duties to 37.6% on electric vehicles of Chinese brands. At the same time, on July 2, Reuters reported that not all EU countries are yet convinced of the need for such a decision, in particular Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ireland.
The United States has not yet introduced similar duties on goods from Chinese marketplaces, but the abolition of duty-free orders through foreign marketplaces is approaching in the EAEU countries, which include Russia (they are expected to ratify the relevant protocol, now such a threshold in these countries is 200 euros).