US ends duty-free status for Thai, Indian, Brazilian goods.

WASHINGTON: The United States has withdrawn duty-free treatment given under a special programme to certain passenger tyres from Thailand, wood flooring from Brazil and gold rope necklaces from India, the government said today.

As the products were found to be "sufficiently competitive" in the United States, their duty-free treatment under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme "will be withdrawn”, a statement by the US Trade Representative's office said.

The decision was made by President Barack Obama during an annual review of the GSP programme, created by the US Congress more than three decades ago to allow certain goods of developing countries to be imported into the US duty-free.

In 2009, the United States extended duty-free treatment under the GSP programme to exports worth US$20.3 billion (RM66.1 billion) from eligible beneficiary countries, government data showed.

Obama also decided to continue duty-free treatment for fresh-cut carnations from Colombia and silver jewellery from Thailand, the statement said.

Egypt's request to add frozen beans and frozen mixed vegetables to a list of eligible products was also granted, with the two products to enjoy duty-free benefits on July 1.

In addition, the statement said, Obama decided to continue providing duty-free treatment to 110 products from 19 beneficiary countries because their imports exceeded the statutory ceilings by only a small amount.

The imports of the 110 products were valued at US$613 million last year.

"GSP is central to our trade agenda and critical to developing countries’ continued growth and development," US Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk said.

"In our annual review, USTR worked to make sure GSP is working as it should, assessing GSP beneficiaries’ development, export competitiveness, and domestic policy practices."

He said the GSP programme could help developing countries grow their export industries while providing US businesses the inputs and products they needed to "keep good jobs here at home".

As part of this year’s review, the USTR also analysed petitions to withdraw or limit countries' GSP benefits based on various criteria, the USTR said.

The criteria included whether they took steps to afford internationally recognised standards for worker rights, provide key investor protections, including enforcement of arbitral awards, and protect intellectual property rights.

In 2009, the USTR accepted petitions to review whether Sri Lanka met GSP eligibility criteria related to worker rights and whether Argentina met the criteria related to enforcement of arbitral awards.

Countries that remain under review of whether they meet eligibility criteria are Lebanon, Russia and Uzbekistan regarding intellectual property rights protection and Bangladesh, Niger, the Philippines and Uzbekistan on worker rights.

Under the GSP programme, in total, 131 developing countries, including 43 least-developed countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Cambodia, are eligible to export about 5,000 types of products duty-free to the United States.

Source : Free Malaysia Today