Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) Announced GSP Review
 
November 26, 2002
 

The USTR has announced the initiation of the 2002 Annual Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Product and Country Eligibility Practices Review.  Interested parties or foreign governments are invited to submit petitions to: 1) designate additional articles as eligible for GSP; 2) withdraw, suspend or limit GSP duty-free treatment accorded either to eligible articles or to individual beneficiary developing countries with respect to specific GSP eligible articles; 3) waive the "competitive need limits" for individual beneficiary developing countries with respect to specific GSP eligible articles; and 4) otherwise modify GSP coverage.  Interested parties may submit petitions to have the GSP status of any eligible beneficiary developing country reviewed.  The deadline for the submission of petitions is no later than 5 p.m. on December 2, 2002.  The schedule for completing the 2002 and 2001 annual reviews is, to the extent practicable, to be merged because the 2001 program expired on September 30, 2001, and was not reauthorized until August 6, 2002.  The notification of which petitions have been accepted for the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP Reviews and other relevant dates will be issued in the Federal Register.  For further information, contact the GSP Subcommittee, USTR, 1724 F Street, N.W., Room F-220, Washington, D.C. 20508. The telephone number is (202) 395-6971 and the facsimile number is (202) 395-9481.  Information on the requirements for filing a petition are available http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-27773-filed.