Commercial Information Circulars

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Ref : EIC 230/20/1/1

6 January 2014

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 15/2014

European Union (EU)* : Establishment of a List of GSP+ Beneficiary Countries under the Scheme of Generalised Tariff Preferences Applied from 1 January 2014

Further to Commercial Information Circular No. 900/2012 of 5 November 2012, the European Commission (the Commission) has published a delegated regulation to establish Annex III to Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 listing the beneficiary countries of the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (GSP+ beneficiary countries) under the scheme of generalised tariff preferences (GSP) applied 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:2014:001:0001:0003:EN:PDF.

DETAILS

2. On 31 October 2012, the European Parliament and the Council of EU published Regulation (EU) No 978/2012 (the GSP Regulation) to announce the application of the GSP scheme for the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2023. The 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 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.)

3. The GSP Regulation establishes specific eligibility criteria for the granting of tariff preferences under the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance (GSP+) to the requesting countries. Having examined the requests from Armenia, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay and Peru, the Commission has adopted the delegated regulation to establish Annex III to the GSP Regulation the list of GSP+ beneficiary countries which meet the eligibility criteria for granting the GSP+ to those countries from 1 January 2014. The 10 requesting countries are all featured in the established list.

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. Hong Kong has graduated from the scheme since 1 May 1998. For the Mainland of China, while she currently remains a beneficiary country of the general arrangement of the GSP scheme, the Commission has published another delegated regulation to amend the GSP Regulation by removing, inter alia, the Mainland of China from the list of beneficiary countries of the general arrangement from one year after the date of entry into force of that another delegated regulation on 1 January 2014. For details, please refer to Commercial Information Circular No. 1081/2013 of 31 December 2013.

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, 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.