Commercial Information Circulars

24-hour hotline : 23 922 922

e-mail address : enquiry@tid.gov.hk

Ref : EIC 230/3

19 December 2014

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 1074/2014

European Union (EU)* : Temporary Tariff Suspension for Certain Agricultural and Industrial Products

Further to the Commercial Information Circulars Nos. 627/2014 of 2 July 2014 and 881/2014 of 10 October 2014, the Council of the EU (the Council) has adopted a regulation to amend the list of agricultural and industrial products of which import tariffs will be partially or totally suspended. The amending regulation can be accessed through the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:JOL_2014_363_R_0002&from=EN.

DETAILS

2.Temporary tariff suspension applies to products of which the Union production is currently inadequate or non-existent and thus, the needs of user industries in the Union cannot be met. Products for which tariff duties are temporarily suspended can be imported into the Union at reduced or zero rate.

3.The Council has amended the existing regulation on temporary suspension of autonomous tariff duties on certain agricultural and industrial products to insert and to delete a number of products to reflect the Union's interest. Among the amendments, descriptions of some products are modified in order to take account of technical product developments, economic trends on the market or to carry out linguistic adaptations, while other amendments include TARIC codes for additional products necessitated by upcoming changes in the combined nomenclature as of 1 January 2015, etc. Also, it is considered in the interest of the Union to amend the date for mandatory review in respect of 184 products, to shorten the period of mandatory review for four products, and to provide supplementary units for some of the new products for which suspension are granted in order to allow an appropriate statistical monitoring.

4.Details of the amendments are set out in the amending regulation and its annexes which shall apply from 1 January 2015 (except for the amendments pertaining to products of TARIC codes ex 8501 32 00 50 and ex 8501 33 00 55 which shall apply from 1 January 2014).

ENQUIRIES

5.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.