Electronics manufacturers ask authorities to increase import duties

According to Kommersant, for computers, laptops, servers, data storage systems that have not yet been subject to duty, it is proposed to introduce 5% duty. In the middle of last month, a meeting on the same issues was held at the Ministry of Digital Development. The participants proposed not only to raise duties on the import of gadgets, but also to ban their parallel import if their analogues are produced in Russia. The agency supported the proposal, but the Ministry of Economy regarded it with skepticism.

At the same time, proposals from the laptop and server manufacturer Aquarius and the electronics manufacturer KEAZ to change import duties are being considered. This practice is used to protect domestic producers. We are talking about positions, the production of which has already been successfully mastered within the country. The FCS recalled that the duty rates are set by the single customs tariff of the Eurasian Economic Union, and in its current version, a zero duty is applied to the list of goods from the category "electrical equipment". Aquarius believes that zero duties for the import of finished equipment is a "transfer of the point of profit beyond the perimeter" of the country. If production is established in Russia, then it is necessary to revise the duties on the import of such equipment from abroad.

In 2020, experts from the Higher School of Economics were critical of lowering the threshold for duty-free import of parcels from abroad. In their opinion, the Russian economy will lose about 81 billion rubles because of this in three years, and the budget will earn only 14 billion rubles.