USTR Will Not be Publishing a "Warning List" of Country/HTS Pairs that Could Lose GSP on July 1, 2009 Due to the CNLs
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice announcing that it will not be publishing a 2008 GSP Annual Review "warning list" of country/tariff number pairs that could lose duty-free Generalized System of Preferences treatment on July 1, 2009 due to exceeding the competitive need limitation values.
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Instead, each interested party is responsible for reviewing 2008 import data to see if the 2008 import value of their pairs is close to exceeding the 2008 CNL values. This data is available on the ITC's Web site at http://dataweb.usitc.gov.
(There are two types of CNLs - the value CNL ($135 million for 2008) and the 50% CNL (equal to or greater than 50% of the value of total U.S. 2008 imports of the tariff number from all countries) 1.)
ITC Data Must be Reviewed to Determine Whether a Waiver Petition is Needed
CNL exclusions for July 1, 2009 will be based on full calendar year 2008 import data, which will be available in February 2009 on the ITC Web site.
However, the 2008 data available to date should be reviewed now to determine whether any pairs of interest are close to exceeding the 2008 CNL values, and therefore need a CNL waiver petition to be filed.
Waiver Petitions Must be Filed by November 13, 2008
The President has the authority to waive both the value and the 50% CNL for a pair if an interested party petitions for a waiver before the pair exceeds a CNL.2
Petitions requesting CNL waivers must be received by the GSP Subcommittee no later than 5:00 p.m. on November 13, 2008 in order to be considered in the 2008 GSP Annual Review. The list of product petitions accepted for review will be published in the Federal Register at a later date.
1Least-developed GSP beneficiary developing countries (LDBDCs) or African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries are not subject to CNLs.
2The President also considers de minimis waivers for all GSP countries that exceed the 50% CNL for a tariff number, if the value of total imports of that tariff number from all countries during the calendar year did not exceed the applicable de minimis amount for the year. In such circumstances, no petition is required to be filed. Comments on de minimis waivers will be requested after publication of a separate Federal Register notice in February 2009.
Comments on de minimis waivers will be requested after publication of a separate Federal Register notice in February 2009.
(See today's ITT, 08101799 1, for BP summary on the signing into law of legislation to extend the GSP program through December 31, 2009, etc.
See ITT's Online Archives or 10/08/08 news, 08100820, for BP summary of the ITC's initiation of an investigation regarding possible modifications under the 2008 GSP Annual Review.
See ITT's Online Archives or 09/15/08 news, 08091505, for BP summary on the USTR' s announcement of product and country petitions filed/ongoing and accepted for the 2008 GSP Annual Review.)
USTR contact - Regina Teeter (202) 395-6971
USTR notice (FR Pub 10/16/08) available at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-24593.pdf.