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HOUSE OF COMMONS SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY AND TRADE
VISIT TO ASEAN COUNTRIES: NOVEMBER 1982
THE GENERALISED SCHEME OF PREFERENCES (GSP)
(1) Following the agreement at UNCTAD II in 1968, most developed countries have introduced a Generalised System of Preferences with the aim of increasing the developing countries' export earnings, encouraging their industrialisation and speeding up their economic growth. The EC GSP, first introduced in 1971, was substantially revised in 1980 and extended for a further ten years from 1981. It offers preferential tariff treatment to products imported into
the Community from the developing countries. Almost all industrial products are granted duty-free access subject to quantitative limits in the case of products sensitive to Community industries and preferential entry is extended to a range of (mainly processed) agricultural products, usually without quantitative limit but often at reduced rather than zero rates of duty.
(2) The Scheme is revised annually and will next be renewed in depth in 1985. Under the Scheme for Industrial Products operated
up to 1980 a system of global ceilings led to the more dynamic beneficiaries (ie Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs)) taking
the greater share of the available preference to the exclusion of
the less-competitive countries. The new Scheme is innovative
in that by applying quota and ceiling limitations against specific countries for products in which they are competitive, it ensures that the less developed countries will not be excluded from
preferential access by the more competitive beneficiaries.
(3) This year's annual review of the scheme is now in progress in Brussels. In the industrial products sector the Commission have
adopted a product by product approach this year taking account of the difficult economic situation in the Community and have proposed
modest increases in ceilings and quotas for only the less sensitive
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