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In April 2017, the Preferential Procurement Regulations 2017 (Regulation 2017) came into force, repealing and replacing the associated Preferential Procurement Regulations 2011 (Regulation 2011), but retaining all thresholds determined for local procurement under the 2011 framework.

Similarly to the Regulation 2011, the Regulation 2017 empowers the Department of Trade and Industry, in consultation with the National Treasury, to designate sectors, subsectors, products and industries for public procurement bids to comply with a set of local production requirements stipulated with a minimum local threshold. Such requirements are imposed on all state entities specified in Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, section 1, i.e. "a national or provincial department as defined in the Public Finance Management Act, 1999; a municipality as contemplated in the Constitution; a constitutional institution as defined in the Public Finance Management Act; Parliament; a provincial legislature."

Regulation 2017 sets out a number of changes including advancing the participation of small and black-owned businesses by changing prequalification criteria in the bidding process of public procurement tenders and in doing so limiting the participation of "well-established companies"; tenders worth more than R 30 million (USD 2.21 million) must impose a "specific tendering condition that the successful tenderer must subcontract a minimum of 30% of the value of the contract" to small and black-owned businesses; and changing the point system which determines the awarding of tenders in public procurement to favour B-BBEE status level of contributors - B-BBEE status level is determined from the participation of black people at a company in specific function and roles.

Early in April 2014, the South African Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) published its annual update to the Industrial Policy Action Plan, containing numerous pledges to strengthen localization of products and sectors. For example, in the electronics industry, public procurement will be leveraged in support of localization.

In the case of designated sectors where local production and content is deemed “of critical importance”, the tendering procedure must be restricted to locally produced goods, services or works only. As of April 2014, these designated sectors include set-top boxes for digital TV and telecom cables.

In the 2015 National Budget Speech, it was announced that the electronic services provisions would be amended to include the supply of software within its scope. This announcement signals a departure from the strict focus on business to consumer operations and the first steps towards the taxation of online services which are provided in business to business operations.

In South Africa, foreign e-commerce suppliers and foreign businesses supplying eBooks, music and other digital services (e.g. apps, digital books, online memberships, gaming online, streaming movies, music downloads) are required to register as Value Added Tax (VAT) vendors for business to consumer operations.

Moreover, the VAT registration threshold for foreign companies (taxable yearly turnover exceeding ZAR 50,000 (approx. USD 3,500)) is lower than that for domestic companies (ZAR 1 million (approx. USD 100,000)).

A bill amending South Africa's Films and Publications Act which so as to extend its application to online content will also require all content platforms to register as content distributors and pay an annual fee, based off the number titles they have in their library.

The bill passed in Parliament and has been transmitted to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence in August 2018, following which it is set to be signed off by the president and will officially come into law.

The rate of the duty is 65.47%.

In Russia, online advertisement for alcohol is prohibited and alcohol cannot be sold online.

According to Russia's de minimis rule goods not exceeding 61 SDR / 5000 RUR / 89 USD of value are exempted from taxes and duties collected by customs.

The use of bitcoins is banned in Russia.

Russia has not adopted UNICTRAL model law on e-commerce or e-signatures. The Russian law on e-signatures however states that electronic signatures have the same legal effect as handwritten ones.

Amendments to the Federal Law on National Payment System (NPS Law) significantly affect e-payments. In fact, they require international payment cards to be processed locally and aim to cement the role of the National Payment Card System (NPCS) as the single operator providing payment clearing and operations services in Russia.

The NPS Law also requires security deposits by operators of such payment systems not qualifying as “nationally important payment systems.” Representatives of international payment systems have criticised the introduction of security deposits.

It is reported that DHL and FedEx have stopped express deliveries into Russia because of new customs procedures that are considered burdensome. Furthermore, e-commerce companies that work with the Russian Post complain about slow delivery and stolen goods.

The Communications Law establishes a separate procedure for licensing and certification in the sphere of telecommunications. All communication devices are subject to a procedure of mandatory conformity acknowledgement by way of either compulsory certification or compulsory declaration of conformity. The certificate is one of the documents required for customs clearance of the equipment and therefore import is not allowed without such certificate.

All other devices are subject to a mandatory declaration of conformity. Additional documents may be required either at the moment of project’s commissioning for commercial exploitation (by Rossvyaznadzor inspectors) or when the goods have been placed on retail shelves (by trade inspectors).