Russia to push for lower EEU duty-free threshold in online retail - Finance Ministry's Trunin
MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Russian officials will insist on lowering the duty-free threshold for online retail purchases imported to Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) countries, Deputy Finance Minister Ilya Trunin said.
"Definitely, we will insist that the threshold in the EEU be lower," Trunin told journalists during a meeting of the policy commission of the World Customs Organization in Moscow on Monday.
"We are also concentrating efforts on making the payment mechanism invisible from the standpoint of the buyer, be they special Russian Post mechanisms, special customs representatives, registration mechanisms and so on. We are discussing this right now in Russia, not just the EEU," he said.
Russians can currently import goods purchased online with a value up to 1,000 euro and a total weight of up to 31 kilograms each month duty free.
Russia's Association of Internet Trade Companies (ATIC) said previously that it drafted proposals on a road map for internet trade, one of which stipulates lowering the duty-free threshold to the Europe-wide level of 22 euro.