While rising trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels continue to dominate headlines, Chinese exporters face a far more immediate and concrete threat: the boxes, wraps, and plastic bags protecting their goods.
On Wednesday, the European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) became applicable across the bloc. Replacing a 1994 directive, the regulation sets requirements for every piece of packaging placed on the EU market, covering chemical restrictions, recyclability, producer responsibility and other compliance obligations.
The rules aim to minimise the volume of packaging and waste generated while lowering the use of primary raw materials and fostering the transition to a sustainable and competitive economy, the European Commission said.
For Chinese exporters, however, the regulation adds another layer of compliance at a time when access to European markets is already becoming more demanding.
In the past, the EU’s packaging directive allowed individual member states to set their own regulations, enabling companies to seek out entry points with relatively lenient standards to access the bloc, said Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think tank under China’s Ministry of Commerce.
That tactic no longer works under the new unified framework, he said.