The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has announced new initiatives, mostly related to textile and apparel, to boost trade and investment opportunities for least developed countries (LDCs). The announcement was made in advance of the eighth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization December 15-17, where certain limited proposals designed to help LDCs may be approved. Other countries such as China and the European Union have also recently announced support for trade initiatives involving LDCs.
The European Union issued the following trade-related releases on December 8 - 12, 2011 (notices of most significance will be given separate headlines):
Senior officials from the U.S. and Afghanistan met on December 12, 2011 to continue their trade dialogue and evaluate progress during their sixth meeting under the U.S. Afghanistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). The officials discussed a wide range of investment climate issues including supporting Afghanistan’s transition to a sustainable economy, market access, the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), trade promotion efforts, intellectual property rights (IPR), sector-specific investment challenges, and the New Silk Road vision. The U.S. also said it will work with the U.S. Congress to enact Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZ) legislation.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for December 5-9, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an update on their Generalized System of Preferences refund process, stating that the agency has begun the refund process for duties paid during the period from January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011. According to sources, this refund process had been delayed for about a month due to problems with the data.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice announcing a January 24, 2012 public hearing regarding ongoing reviews of certain outstanding Generalized System of Preferences country practice petitions.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has extended the deadline until December 30, 2011 for all petitions to modify the list of products that are eligible for duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences program, including those requesting competitive need limitation (CNL) waivers, and to modify the GSP status of certain beneficiary developing countries because of country practices.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for November 28 -- December 2, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
In May 2011, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative updated its guidebook on the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences to facilitate public understanding of the GSP program. Among other topics, the guidebook provides information on articles eligible for duty-free treatment, articles prohibited from receiving such treatment, Competitive Need Limitations, and reimbursement for tariffs after retroactive renewal of the program.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is providing advanced notice of 24 country/tariff number pairs that may exceed the 2011 Competitive Need Limitations (CNLs) under the Generalized System of Preferences program and could possibly lose their GSP eligibility on July 1, 2012.