The EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) is a trade arrangement through which the EU provides preferential access to the EU market to 176 developing countries and territories, in the form of reduced tariffs for their goods when entering the EU market.
GSP covers three separate preference regimes:
- the standard GSP, which provides preferences to 176 developing countries and territories on around 6400 tariff lines;
- the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance, known as GSP+, which offers additional tariff reductions to support vulnerable developing countries in their ratification and implementation of international conventions;
- the Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangement, which provides Duty-free, Quota-Free access for all products for the 50 Least-Developed Countries on 7200 tariff lines.
The 16 beneficiary countries from 1 January 2009 until the end of 2011 will be: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. These countries will have duty-free access to the EU market for around 6400 tariff lines in addition to the standard GSP.
GSP+ preferences are of real economic value to the beneficiary countries: in 2007 there was 4.7 billion € worth of trade under this scheme, with a nominal duty loss (compared to standard GSP rates) for the EU of over 357 million €. The duty-free access means a considerable tariff reduction over the rates applied under the regular GSP scheme. Tariff cuts include tobacco (cut by up to 52%), various fruit juices (up to 30%), fruits (up to 20%), vegetables (up to 14%), fish (up to 20%) and honey (up to 17%).
Source: Weekly Trade News of the European Commission, 11 december 2008.
