Ukraine mulls import levy on second-hand clothes

10 May '11

2 min read

Valeriy Pyatnytskyi, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine recently revealed that, the government proposes to levy duty on imports of second-hand garments.

Through the move, the Government means to address the complaints of the Ukrainian producers that, imports of used garments is harming the Ukrainian light industry. This is in spite of that, these second-hand clothing imports represent a very small monetary share in country's imports.

Valentyna Izovit, Head of the Ukrainian Association of Light Industry Enterprises (UkrLehProm) also accepted that, each year around 100,000 tons of second-hand clothes are imported into the country, which is equal to around 40-50 percent of the total production of the light industry in the country.

The State Committee for Consumer Policy and Entrepreneurship revealed that, per head up to two kg of second-hand garments are imported into the country each year, whose average value as per last year's assessments come to around four cents per kg.

As revealed by the experts, a second-hand blouse or shirt is at the most priced at 50-80 kopecks, while a pair of jeans is maximum priced at around UAH 2 and a down-padded coat at around UAH 5, but the new domestically produced pieces of the same products cost around 5-10 times more.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India