Ecuador Tariff Reduces Leather Industry And Shoemaking Industry Benefit Little

Ecuador's Express newspaper reported on September 20th that Ecuador's Ministry of industry and competition confirmed that the recent decision of the Foreign Trade Commission to reduce import tariffs has benefited 6 major industries.

The decision to import tariffs to 0% and 5% of 1957 products, 561 of which are chemical products, 461 are automobile and pport products, 374 are fishery and aquaculture, 360 are metal machinery industry, 208 are agricultural and animal husbandry products, and 166 are textile related products.

Only 53, 50 and 23 products with the least benefit from the food industry, printing industry (paper and paperboard), leather industry and shoemaking industry have reduced import tariffs.

According to the Deputy Minister of industry, nelo balderon, although there are 1957 kinds of tax relief products approved by the Foreign Investment Commission, there are actually 2256 kinds of products, because the same tariff code applies to different industries.

Javier Dias, executive chairman of the textile industry association, said that lowering tariffs is beneficial to the textile industry, which is very expensive because of the tariff payment.

The presidential decree has not yet been promulgated in the official announcement, so we have no way to estimate the specific benefits of the textile industry so far.

Miguel costars, chairman of the chemical producers association, said that lowering taxes is very important to the chemical industry, which can reduce the cost of final products, such as paint, plastics, drugs and other raw materials tariffs to zero and 5%.

Carlsson Carlsson, manager of the drafting service printing plant, said that although printing industry is one of the industries with the least benefit, it is beneficial to reduce tariffs on 50 of the products in the printing industry,.

This can reduce production costs and hope to become one of the most beneficial industries in the future.

In addition, the import customs duties of 1957 products imported in 2006 amounted to 1 billion 639 million US dollars to zero and 5%.

Of these, 1531 products were cut to zero and 426 products dropped to 5%.

According to resolution 370, the import tariff structure determines all 6950 customs tariff codes. The import tariff level is zero to 35%.

The production industry hopes that this decision of the government is not a short-term interest, but a long-term plan to really promote production and economic development.

Embassy business office, Ecuador, September 21, 2007