According to Ecuador’s “Universo” news on July 11, representatives of Ecuador’s footwear, clothing and textile industry requested to study charging a certain fee for goods entering the country through the customs “4×4” regulations to prevent goods for personal use from entering the circulation market. However, the postal express industry believes that charging fees will affect its own profits.
The “4×4” regulations of Ecuadorian customs mean that if the value of personal-use goods (excluding mobile phones, etc.) purchased by domestic residents “overseas shopping” does not exceed US$400 or weighs less than 4 kilograms, no tariffs will be levied. However, according to Ecuadorian regulations, Regulations require that you pay a 5% foreign exchange remittance tax when purchasing overseas using a credit card. Currently, the Ecuador Post provides an overseas express service called “CorreoClub”. There are as many as 500,000 users using this service for “overseas shopping”, mainly concentrated on major shopping websites in the United States. Ecuadorian consumers generally believe that “overseas shopping” can be used to buy goods. to more affordable products.
Practitioners in Ecuador’s footwear, clothing and textile industry believe that this policy has had a great impact on their own industry. Lidya, president of the National Shoe Industry Chamber of Commerce, said that from 2009 to 2012, the average annual growth rate of the local shoe industry was 100%, while in 2013 It is only 20%, which is directly related to the introduction of the “4×4” regulations. Therefore, they hope to reduce the number of overseas shopping by increasing fees on the one hand, and on the other hand strictly crack down on the black market of buying and selling identity documents to prevent individuals from purchasing goods in large quantities and then reselling them domestically. Relevant data shows that in the first five months of this year, the value of overseas goods entering Ecuador through postal and express delivery totaled US$103 million.
