EAEU to introduce single e-commerce operator

The Eurasian Economic Union proposes the creation of an institute of e-commerce operators. It is a unified system that will operate according to uniform standards, but a National Operator will be created for each country. It will handle all personal goods ordered from foreign websites. First of all, this will help optimize the customs clearance processes, experts say. The operator will be in charge of calculating and paying customs taxes, as well as accepting electronic declarations from individuals. In addition, it will be in charge of monitoring the entry into the single economic space of only those goods that meet the EAEU technical requirements. In this way it will be possible to eliminate administrative barriers and paperwork in the field of cross-border e-commerce, experts say. The final goal is to minimize the delivery time of high-quality and safe goods to the population as much as possible.

“If we did not create such conditions with e-commerce operators, then every citizen would have to go to the customs terminal, carry with them a huge amount of papers, certificates and all sorts of paperwork in order to carry out customs clearance of goods that they bought on Internet platforms. To put it very simply, it is these inconveniences for citizens that we are trying to remove. It will now be up to the e-commerce operator to take over all these procedures related to administering and filling out electronic customs declarations, making payments and everything,” said Maksat Mamytkanov, Minister for Customs Cooperation of the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova

 Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova