Commercial Information Circulars

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Ref : EIC 230/20/1/1

31 December 2013

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 1081/2013

European Union (EU) * : Amendment to the Scheme of Generalised Tariff Preferences from 1 January 2014

Further to Commercial Information Circular No. 154/2013 of 21 February 2013, the European Commission has published another delegated regulation to amend the scheme of generalised tariff preferences (GSP) from 1 January 2014. The delegated regulation can be accessed through the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:355:0001:0015:EN:PDF.

DETAILS

2.Under the GSP scheme from 1 January 2014, a country that has been classified by the World Bank as a high or an upper-middle income country for three consecutive years should not benefit from tariff preferences under the general arrangement of the scheme. As the Mainland of China, Ecuador, Maldives and Thailand have been classified by the World Bank as upper-middle income countries in 2011, 2012 and 2013, these countries should be removed from the list of beneficiary countries of the general arrangement of the GSP from one year after the date of entry into force of the delegated regulation on 1 January 2014.

3.Meanwhile, the delegated regulation also updates the eligible status of Croatia, South Sudan, Myanmar/Burma and Maldives in relation to the GSP scheme, the general arrangement and/or the special arrangement for the least-developed countries of the scheme.

BACKGROUNDS

4.All along, the EU has accorded tariff preferences under a GSP scheme to a range of agricultural and industrial products originating from a number of developing economies to, inter alia, provide them with better market access to the EU. While Hong Kong has graduated from the scheme since 1 May 1998, the Mainland of China has so far remained a beneficiary country.

5.On 31 October 2012, the European Parliament and the Council of EU published Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 to announce the application of the GSP scheme for the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2023. The European Commission then published an implementing regulation on 18 December 2012 to establish a list of products for which tariff preferences to be suspended in respect of certain GSP beneficiary countries, including the Mainland of China, under the new GSP scheme. For details, please refer to Commercial Information Circulars Nos. 900/2012 of 5 November 2012 and 1076/2012 of 19 December 2012.

ENQUIRIES

6.For enquiries concerning the contents of this circular, please contact the undersigned at telephone number 2398 5684.

Yours faithfully,

(Miss Stella CHAN)

for Director-General of Trade and Industry

*The EU includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.