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WTO says Russian import duties on paper, palm oil, fridges illegal

RUSSIAN import duties on paper, refrigerators and palm oil have been found by a WTO panel to violate WTO rules as they exceed those Russia agreed to when it joined the WTO in 2012.

Following the dispute settlement procedure activated by the EU in October 2014, the WTO panel completely agreed that Russia's customs duties on these imports are inconsistent with its WTO commitments, reported American Journal of Transportation.

For certain paper products Russia applies duties of 15 per cent or 10 per cent instead of the five per cent it agreed to when it joined the WTO. The panel confirmed that these violate Article II-1 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

For other products, Russia essentially fixes a minimum amount of import duty that needs to be paid even if this is not justified by the agreed duty rate (reflected in Russia's accession schedule) that is expressed in a percentage of the product value.

The panel confirmed that these measures are also in breach of Article II-1 of the GATT. Indeed, they imply that import duties are levied in excess of WTO-bound levels whenever products are imported at a certain price.

Russia has already brought some of the challenged measures into compliance in the course of the panel proceedings. The panel report can be appealed within 60 days. If no appeal is filed within that deadline the report will be adopted and Russia will be bound to comply with the recommendation to bring all the concerned measures into line with WTO rules.