The concept of unilateral trade preferences in favour of developing and least developed countries was first conceived as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and adopted in 1968 in New Delhi at UNCTAD II. As stated in UNCTAD resolution 21(II): “The objectives of the generalized, non-reciprocal, non-discriminatory system of preferences in favour of developing countries, including special measures in favour of the least advanced among the developing countries, should be:
- To increase their export earnings;
- To promote their industrialization;
- To accelerate their rates of economic of growth.
The first principle of the UNCTAD resolution, namely generality, called for a common scheme to be applied by all preference-giving countries (PGCs) to all developing countries. In practice, there are wide differences among the various GSP schemes in terms of beneficiaries, product coverage, depth of tariff cuts, safeguards and rules of origin.
The Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Decision of 2005 renewed the initiative to provide Duty-Free and Quota-Free preferences to LDCs. As in the case of the GSP each PGC has responded to such initiative differently in terms of country coverage, product coverage, and rules of origin.
UNCTAD has been given since 1975 the mandate to monitor the utilization of the GSP schemes and most recently the trade preferences granted under the the Duty-Free Quota Free initiative in favour of LDCs. Accordingly, UNCTAD and its member states traditionally used the following formula to determine the utilization of unilateral trade preferences under GSP. This formula, adopted in UNCTAD reports and in the Trade and Development Board, has also been adopted by the WTO 1 .
GSP Utilization Rate (GSP-UR) :
GSP UR = 100 * GSP Received Imports / GSP Covered Imports
The UNCTAD GSP Utilization Database provides information on the utilization of the GSP schemes as well as other trade preferences granted to developing countries and LDCs under GSP, DFQF arrangements and in limited occurrences to trade preferences under reciprocal FTAs. For the time being, the database covers imports by QUAD countries, namely Canada, European Union, Japan and the USA, from their GSP beneficiaries and DFQF arrangements over the period 2004-2020. It has to be borne in mind that information is available only for the years in which a country is designated by the PGC as a beneficiary and that the database does not contain information on countries that are not GSP beneficiaries.
It is also important to note that the column “Other Preferences” refers to preferences granted by US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) while in the case of the European Union it includes preferences under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) entered with selected Africa Sub-Saharan countries. This column has been added to show preferences that albeit of a different nature have an impact on preferential trade of the region and several LDCs. The data availability will be progressively improved.
PGCs provide information on their imports from their GSP beneficiaries at the national tariff line through their public official websites that are the main sources of this database. UNCTAD aggregates the data at the level of the HS sub-headings (HS 6-digit codes) and makes available through a front-end application over the Internet at
http://gsp.unctad.org The data are extracted from the respective websites of preference giving countries or made available to UNCTAD secretariat and have been elaborated by UNCTAD to fit into the present database.
For each combination of PGC, Beneficiary, Product and Year, the following elements are available:
- Total Imports: the value in current US thousand dollars of all imports by the PGC from the selected beneficiary during the selected year for the selected product;
- Dutiable Imports: the value of imports subject to the payment of customs duties unless they benefitted from preferences of any kind, i.e. the corresponding MFN rate of duty is greater than zero;
- GSP-covered Imports: the value of imports that are classified in tariff lines that are dutiable and covered by the GSP scheme of the PGC;
- GSP-received Imports: the value of imports that received GSP treatment;
- Other-Preferential Imports: the value of imports that benefitted from non-reciprocal preferences other than GSP and under selected Economic Partnership Agreements that the EU has entered with some African countries. Data on the following schemes are included: AGOA and the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) in the case of the USA and the Economic Partnership Agreements entered by selected Sub-Saharan African countries with the EU;
- All-Preferential Imports: the value of imports that benefitted from preferences, i.e. the sum of GSP-received and Other Preferential Imports;
- MFN/RTA Imports: the value of imports subject to the payment of MFN customs;
- MFN Duty-free Imports: the value of imports that were not subject to the payment of customs duties according to the MFN tariff rate deposited at the WTO, regardless of their origin.
Suggestions and/or comments can be sent to:
GSPdata@unctad.org