Letter from SFIA: U.S. to Review Duty Status of Products made in India and Indonesia

Good morning,

The administration is launching a review of Indonesia and India’s participation in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). This review could result in complete or partial suspension of one or both countries from the program.

The timeline for the GSP schedule reviews are:

June 5: Deadline for requests to testify, comments, and pre-hearing briefs.

June 19: Hearing

July 17: Deadline for post-hearing briefs

SFIA has spoken to trade firms with expertise in this area about representing the industry in these proceedings both through drafting written comments and participating in the June hearing, if necessary.

For India, this review is in response to two petitions filed by U.S. trade associations looking to address long-standing concerns with the Indian market, both for market access on behalf of the U.S. dairy industry and for intellectual property rights related concerns for the medical device industry. These issues have generated a significant amount of Congressional attention on India and its participation in the GSP program. There is a real threat that India may be removed from the GSP program entirely.

Indonesia is in a better position. There is no significant political opposition to its position within the GSP program, particularly when compared to India and no U.S.-based sector is pushing for Indonesia to lose benefits. Instead, USTR has highlighted market access and services and investment concerns in the Indonesian market. One product we know will be of concern is travel goods, which were only added to the GSP in 2017 for Indonesia. There are a significant number of travel goods imported from Indonesia.

If you currently use GSP for sourcing in India or Indonesia or plan to in the near future, please contact Bill Sells, Senior Vice President of Government & Public Affairs at SFIA, at bsells@sfia.org, if interested in participating in the hearing. If there is sufficient member interest we will retain a firm to assist us in the hearing/review process.