Commercial Information Circulars

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27 June 2013

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 502/2013

European Union (EU)* : Alignment of Customs Tariff, Anti-dumping and Countervailing Measures upon EU Enlargement

Croatia is expected to become the 28th Member State of the EU on 1 July 2013. Upon its accession to the Union, Croatia will align its trade regime with that of the EU. Areas of direct interest to Hong Kong include alignment of customs tariff, anti-dumping and countervailing measures.

DETAILS

2.Following the successful conclusion of accession negotiations between the EU and Croatia in June 2011, the signing of an accession treaty in Brussels on 9 December 2011, and the ratification of the accession treaty by Croatia and the current 27 EU Member States, Croatia's accession to the EU will take place on 1 July 2013. From that day onwards, Croatia will apply the EU's common commercial policy, including the EU's common customs tariff (CCT), and the EU's trade defence measures such as anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

3.The EU's CCT will apply to Croatia starting 1 July 2013. As far as Hong Kong's major domestic exports to Croatia are concerned, the existing tariff rates of Croatia are higher than the EU's CCT for most product sectors. As a whole, the adoption of the CCT by Croatia should bring down the total tariff payable for Hong Kong's domestic exports to Croatia.

4.The European Commission (the Commission) has published a notice that all anti-dumping and countervailing measures in force in the EU will be automatically extended to Croatia after the latter's accession to the Union on 1 July 2013. For the pending anti-dumping and countervailing investigations initiated before 1 July 2013, any anti-dumping and countervailing measures arising from such investigations will equally apply to imports into the enlarged 28 Member States Union. The notice can be accessed through the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2013:137:0009:0009:EN:PDF.

5.Interested parties may request for review of anti-dumping and countervailing measures by submitting evidence that the measures would have been significantly different if they were based on information including Croatia. For further information, interested parties may visit the trade defence enlargement website of the Commission's Directorate-General for Trade:
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=880.

6.While neither the EU nor Croatia has currently imposed anti-dumping or countervailing measure against products originating in Hong Kong, the EU has maintained a number of anti-dumping or countervailing measures and initiated a number of anti-dumping or countervailing investigations against products originating in the Mainland of China. These would accordingly apply to Croatia on 1 July 2013. For details of individual cases, please check out relevant commercial information circulars at the Department's website:
http://www.tid.gov.hk/english/aboutus/tradecircular/cic/cic_maincontent.html.

7.Hong Kong's merchandise trade volume with Croatia is not significant. In 2012, Hong Kong's domestic exports to the country totalled about HK$0.5 million which was equivalent to 0.017% of Hong Kong's total domestic exports to the current 27 EU Member States or less than 0.001% of total domestic exports worldwide.

ENQUIRIES

8.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, 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.