The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice summarizing the results of the 2010 GSP Annual Review. It describes the disposition of the product petitions accepted for review in the 2010 GSP Annual Review and the status of country practices petitions accepted as part of GSP annual reviews, including the 2010 GSP Annual Review.
Proclamation 8770 to (i) remove certain non-down sleeping bags (not containing 20% or more by weight of feathers and/or down, HTS 9404.30.80) from eligibility for duty-free entry under the Generalized System of Preferences program for goods entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after January 1, 2012, (ii) extend the Israel agriculture (butter, dried milk, cheese, peanuts, ice cream) tariff rate quotas, and (iii) make certain conforming changes to HTS Chapter 99 (HTS 9902.13.91 and 9902.13.92) that were inadvertently omitted from Proclamation 8742 on textile-bottomed footwear, is published in the January 4 Federal Register, along with its Annexes detailing the changes.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has announced the President's decision to designate all of the 40 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries currently eligible for African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade preferences and other benefits to remain eligible for such benefits in 2012. The President determined that no new countries would be added as AGOA beneficiaries.
On December 29, 2011, the President issued a Proclamation to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to remove certain “non-down” sleeping bags from the Generalized System of Preferences program, make certain conforming changes that were inadvertently omitted from Proclamation 8742 on textile-bottomed footwear, and extend certain Israel agriculture tariff rate quotas through 2012. Details of these changes, contained in the Proclamation’s Annexes, are not expected to be available until the proclamation is published in the Federal Register.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for December 19-23, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which began processing Generalized System of Preferences duty refunds in early December for entries made during the period of January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011, expects that all refunds for entries that were filed via ABI with the Special Program Indicator (SPI) "A" will be issued by the end of February 2012.
Broker Power is providing readers with some of the top stories for December 12-16, 2011 in case they were missed last week.
In a December 14, 2011 speech at the International Engagement Conference for South Sudan, U.S. Trade Representative Kirk stated that the USTR has begun the process of examining South Sudan’s eligibility for two major U.S. trade preference programs, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). While there are certain congressionally mandated criteria and legislative changes that must first be considered, by initiating the examination process, USTR has begun a necessary step prior to making a recommendation to President on South Sudan’s eligibility. He says that if South Sudan meets the criteria for these two programs, the South Sudanese will be able to export nearly everything they produce domestically to the U.S. duty-free.
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):