EU states on Thursday agreed to scrap a bloc-wide duty exemption on low-value orders from the likes of retail giants Temu and Shein to help tackle a flood of cheap Chinese imports.

Currently there is no levy on packages worth less than 150 euros ($174) imported directly to consumers in the 27-nation bloc, in many cases via Chinese-founded platforms.

Last year, 4.6 billion such small packages entered the EU — more than 145 per second — with 91 percent originating in China. The EU expects the numbers to rise.

Member states, including France, and the EU executive hope the duty exemption can be done away with from the start of next year, rather than 2028.

They will now work on “a simple, temporary solution to enable earlier implementation as soon as possible”, an EU official said.

Europea

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