Russian quotas to remain stable in 2015 and 2016
The quotas for Russian softwood logs that can be imported into the EU at reduced rates of customs duty will be remaining unchanged in 2015 and 2016 at the levels of the last two years. On 23 April an appropriate amendment was made in the Official Journal of the European Union to the regulation which had applied since June 2012 and had been previously amended on 2 May 2014. In doing so, the EU Commission is skipping the originally planned reduction of maximum import volumes for this year and next year. The purpose of this is to enable importers to make full use of the customs quotas agreed with Russia for roughly 5.96m m³ of spruce round-wood and 3.65m m³ of pine roundwood.
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