A German trade association has urged the country’s finance minister to push for faster and more effective measures to address the issue of Chinese e-commerce platforms, such as Shein and Temu, which are allegedly circumventing EU regulations.
The Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE) has written a letter to Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, calling for decisive action at the EU level to tackle the problem. The association’s president and chief executive, Alexander von Preen and Stefan Genth, respectively, emphasized the need for a level playing field, stating that EU companies that adhere to EU norms should not be at a disadvantage due to the lack of control over their Chinese competitors.
The HDE is advocating for measures such as the abolition of the 150-euro customs-free threshold and the introduction of a processing fee for Chinese packages. However, the association emphasized that the processing fee should only be applied to non-EU countries and only to goods directly sent to end-consumers, to avoid increasing the costs of international purchases for German trading companies.
The HDE also highlighted the struggles of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are facing a 60 percent decline in sales due to the unfair competition from Chinese e-commerce platforms. According to the association, the German trade remains stuck with the higher-priced products, as a result of the unbalanced competition.
The EU finance ministers are set to meet on June 20 and the HDE is urging Klingbeil to use this opportunity to send a strong signal against the package flood and the thousands of non-compliant products from China. The necessary instruments are already in place, the association claimed.