67 FR 212 pgs. 66699-66700 - Generalized System of Preferences (GSP); Deadline for Submission of Petitions for the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility Practices Review and Status of 2001 Annual GSP Review
Type: NOTICEVolume: 67Number: 212Pages: 66699 - 66700
FR document: [FR Doc. 02-27773 Filed 10-31-02; 8:45 am]
Agency: Trade Representative, Office of United States
Official PDF Version: PDF Version
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
Generalized System of Preferences (GSP); Deadline for Submission of Petitions for the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility Practices Review and Status of 2001 Annual GSP Review
AGENCY:
Office of the United States Trade Representative.
ACTION:
Notice.
SUMMARY:
This notice announces the initiation of the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility Practices Review and sets the deadline for the submission of petitions on December 2, 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:
Contact the GSP Subcommittee, Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), 1724 F Street, NW., Room F-220, Washington, DC 20508. The telephone number is (202) 395-6971 and the facsimile number is (202) 395-9481.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
The GSP provides for the duty-free importation of designated articles when imported from designated beneficiary developing countries. The GSP is authorized by title V of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2461, et seq. ), as amended (the "Trade Act"), and is implemented in accordance with Executive Order 11888 of November 24, 1975, as modified by subsequent Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations.
2002 Annual GSP Review
The GSP regulations (15 CFR Part 2007) provide the schedule of dates for conducting an annual review unless otherwise specified by a Federal Register notice. Notice is hereby given that, in order to be considered in the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility PracticesReview, all petitions to modify the list of articles eligible for duty-free treatment under GSP or to review the GSP status of any beneficiary developing country must be received by the GSP Subcommittee of the TradePolicy Staff Committee no later than 5 p.m., December 2, 2002. Petitions submitted after the deadline will not be considered for review.
Interested parties or foreign governments may 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 under the GSP 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.As specified in 15 CFR 2007.1, all product petitions must include a detailed description of the product and the subheading of the HarmonizedTariff Schedule (HTS) of the United States under which the product is classified.
Interested parties may also submit petitions to have the GSP status of any eligible beneficiary developing country reviewed with respect to any of the designation criteria listed in sections 502(b) or 502(c) of the TradeAct (19 U.S.C. 2462(b) and (c)). Such petitions must comply with the requirements of 15 CFR 2007.0(b).
Requirements for Submissions
All such submissions must conform to the GSP regulations set forth at 15 CFR part 2007, except as modified below. These regulations are also included in "A Guide to the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP)"(August 1991) ("GSP Guidebook"), available at www.ustr.gov. Petitioners are strongly advised to review the GSP regulations. Submissions that do not provide all information required by sections 2007.0 and 2007.1 of the GSP regulations will not be accepted for review, except upon a detailed showing in the submission that the petitioner made a good faith effort to obtain the information required. Petitions with respect to waivers of the "competitive need limitations" must meet the information requirements for product addition requests in section 2007.1(c) of the GSP regulations. A model petition format is available from the GSP Subcommittee and is included in the GSP Guide. Petitioners are requested to use this model petition format so as to ensure that all information requirements are met.Furthermore, interested parties submitting petitions that request action with respect to specific products should list on the first page of the petition the following information: (1) The requested action; (2) the United States HTS subheading in which the product is classified; and (3) if applicable, the beneficiary country.
Petitions and requests must be submitted, in English, to the Chairman of the GSP Subcommittee, Trade Policy Staff Committee and must be received no later than December 2, 2002. Submissions in response to this notice will be subject to public inspection by appointment with the staff of the USTR Public Reading Room, except for information granted "business confidential" status pursuant to 15 CFR 2003.6. If the submission contains business confidential information, a non-confidential version of the submission must also be submitted that indicates where confidential information was redacted by inserting asterisks where material was deleted. In addition, the confidential submission must be clearly marked "BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL" at the top and bottom of each and every page of the document. The public version which does not contain business confidential information must also be clearly marked at the top and bottom of each and every page (either "PUBLICVERSION" or "NON-CONFIDENTIAL").
In order to facilitate prompt consideration of submissions, USTR strongly urges and prefers electronic e-mail submissions in response to this notice. In the event that an e-mail submission is impossible, submissions should be made by facsimile. These submissions should be single copy transmissions in English with the total submission not to exceed 50 single-spaced pages and 3 megabytes as a digital file attached to an e-mail transmission. Persons making submissions by e-mail should use the following subject line: "2002 Annual GSP Review-Petition." Documents must be submitted as either WordPerfect (".WPD"), MSWord (".DOC"), or text(".TXT") files. Documents should not be submitted as electronic image files or contain imbedded images (for example, ".JPG", "PDF", ".BMP", or ".GIF") as these type files are generally excessively large. E-mail submissions containing such files may not be accepted. Supporting documentation submitted as spreadsheets are acceptable as Quattro Pro orExcel, pre-formatted for printing on 8 1⁄2 x 11 inch paper. To the extent possible, any data attachments to the submission should be included in the same file as the submission itself, and not as separate files. Facsimile submissions should include, among other identifying information specified in the regulations, the following information at the top of the first page:"2002 Annual GSP Review."
For any document containing business confidential information submitted as an electronic attached file to an e-mail transmission, the file name of the business confidential version should begin with the characters "BC-", and the file name of the public version should begin with the characters "P-". The "P-" or "BC-" should be followed by the name of the party (government, company, union, association, etc.) which is submitting the petition. Parties who make submissions by e-mail should not provide separate cover letters or messages in the message area of the e-mail; information that might appear in any cover letter should be included directly in the attached file containing the submission itself. The e-mail address for these submissions is FR0052@USTR.GOV. Documents not submitted in accordance with these instructions might not be considered in this review.
Public versions of all documents relating to this review will be available for review approximately three weeks after the due date by appointment in the USTR Public Reading Room, 1724 F Street NW.,Washington, DC. Availability of documents may be ascertained, and appointments may be made from 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.,Monday through Friday, by calling (202) 395-6186.
Status of 2001 Annual GSP Review
The GSP program expired on September 30, 2001, and was not reauthorized until August 6, 2002. Consequently, the announcement of which petitions were to be accepted for the 2001 Annual GSP Review was not made, except for the announcement in the August 28, 2002 Federal Register of those petitions accepted for the Special Three Country Review for Argentina, the Philippines and Turkey. Because of this delay, the schedule for completing the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP Reviews will be merged to the extent practicable. The notification of which petitions have been accepted for the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP Reviews and other relevant dates, including the review schedule, will be issued in the Federal Register .
Steven Falken,
Executive Director for GSP, Chairman, GSP Subcommittee.
[FR Doc. 02-27773 Filed 10-31-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3901-01-P