Dear Members,
We have received communication from the EP-CAP Section, Department of Commerce and also FT-NAFTA Division, Department of Commerce, respectively, regarding Review of US GSP and also a stakeholders meeting to deliberate on future course of action.
As you are aware, the United States Generalised System of Preferences (US-GSP) program provides for the duty-free treatment of designated articles when imported from beneficiary developing countries.
However, the Office of US Trade Representative (USTR) has announced that it is reviewing the eligibility of India and some other countries based on concerns about compliance with the program. For India, GSP country eligibility review is based on concerns related to its compliance with GSP market access criteria.
In this regard, USTR has launched a self-initiated GSP eligibility review of India based on concerns related to its compliance with market access criterion and is also accepting two petitions related to same criterion. The petitions are filed by US diary industry and US medical device industry requested a review of India’s GSP benefits, given the trade barriers affecting US exports. The US has formally notified in Federal register on 27/04/2018 initiating Country Practice Review of India regarding compliance with GSP eligibility criteria and notice is submitted for Public comments and hearing. The US is asserting that India has implemented wide range of trade barriers that adversely impact US Commerce. The acceptance of these petitions and GSP self-initiated review will result in overall review of India’s compliance with GSP market access criterion.
The Federal Register (FR) provides for interested parties to submit comments and hearing as per following timelines:
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5 June 2018 - Deadline for interested parties to submit comments, pre-hearing briefs and request to appear in the public hearing.
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19 June 2018:- The Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) will hold a public hearing for interested parties.
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A transcript of the public hearing will be available on www.regulations.gov within approximately two weeks after the date of the hearing.
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17 July 2018 - Deadline for interested parties to submit post-hearing briefs.
For the convenience of the exporters from chemical industry, NAFTA Division, DoC has analysed the current GSP benefit being given by US to various the chemical sector items falling under Chapter 28 to 38. The excel sheet having list of such items is enclosed herewith for your ready reference.
Members are requested to go through the list of items and also let us have your comments/ justification on the items being exported by your company highlighting why GSP benefit should continue and also how the GSP imports into India are benefiting US industry as most the items are intermediates and raw materials. Further, you can also mention how such exports to US are also benefiting our own MSMEs. Similarly, you can also impress upon your US importers to take up these responses at their end also.
Kindly note that a stakeholders meeting is being organised on 4th May 2018 in New Delhi under the Chairmanship of Joint Secretary EP-CAP, DoC to discuss the discuss the way forward in this matter. Your early replies will enable us put forth the relevant justification/ responses for various items.
Since time is short, members are requested to kindly send their replies latest by 03/05/2018 on e-mail ids- ed@chemexcil.gov.in, deepak.gupta@chemexcil.gov.in & rodelhi@chemexcil.gov.in so that we can update the Department of Commerce accordingly during the stakeholders meeting.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
( S.G.BHARADI )
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
CHEMEXCIL
http://chemexcil.in/uploads/files/CHEMEXCIL.XLSX
