On December 11, the European Council announced a new autonomous tariff quota (ATQs) for the period from 2019 to 2020, which increased the duty-free quotas for Alaska's pollock, codfish, wild salmon, crayfish and other aquatic products, and reduced the duty-free quotas for herring, squid and cold shrimp.
The new quota system came into effect on January 1, 2019, and the tax exemption policy is only effective for European processing enterprises.
Among them, the annual duty-free import quota of Alaska Pollock increased from 300,000 tons to 320,000 tons. In addition, ATQs of other codfish species will increase from 117,000 tons to 148,500 tons in the next two years.
According to EU previous official regulations, importers have to pay tariffs when the import quota completes 80%. Although this tax and fee will eventually be refunded to enterprises, many importers complain about the government's cumbersome procedures.
On the other hand, the import quota of herring was reduced from 32,500 tons to 8,000 tons; the import quota of squid was reduced from 40,000 tons to 28,000 tons; and the ATQs of imported frozen and shelled cold shrimp (Pandalus Borealis and Pandalus montagui) were reduced from 30,000 tons to 7,000 tons.
Elizabeth Kostinger, President of the European Council, said: "ATQs aims to provide raw materials and semi-raw materials for the EU processing industry to ensure the competitiveness of products without damaging local EU suppliers."
