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):
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.