The growth of online shopping at such a pace has almost put the country’s customs service on edge, which has called on authorities to urgently restrict purchases from Chinese online stores and the mailing of purchased goods. Ukraine’s “European Pravda” refers Sami Rakshit, director general of the Finnish Customs Service, who said in an interview with a local publication that customs officials are simply unable to cope with the tens of times greater flow of mail.
According to the Finnish customs chief, only large shipments of goods brought directly into bonded warehouses can be handled properly and full compliance with both security requirements and tax obligations can be verified.
Rakshit said that measures should be taken to curb the “tsunami of online commerce”.
“First of all, we should try to avoid sending individual parcels around the world directly to consumers, as in such a case control is almost impossible,” he said.
Customs reform is now underway in the EU to increase control over online commerce, both in terms of security and taxation. Although this may not lead to major changes in online commerce, as serious disagreements and risks of introducing restrictive measures remain.
Authorities in the EU and individual countries have to choose between the risks of losing control over commodity flows due to online trading via parcels, and the dissatisfaction of citizens who are increasingly using these shopping channels due to too obvious price differences.
“We should move forward because the risks are too great. Member States have been reporting the e-commerce tsunami to the Commission for several years now,” summarized Rakshit.
