IN the third week of December 2006, US President George Bush signed a legislation that continues the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program for two years until December 31, 2008, according to an official release. The GSP program provides duty-free entry for 3,400 products from 133 designated beneficiary developing countries and territories. The new legislation includes new statutory thresholds to identify products that have reached a level of competitiveness suggesting that they no longer warrant duty-free benefits.

The current GSP statute includes two �competitive need limitations (CNLs)� on the eligibility of a product for benefits under GSP: (i) if the annual trade of a product from a specific country exceeds a monetary threshold ($125 million in 2006); or (ii) if the annual trade of a product from a specific country exceeds 50 per cent of total US imports of that product. The statute also authorises the President to grant a waiver to the limitations if certain statutory conditions are met.

Based on import data from January through October 2006, gold jewellery imports from India worth $1.6 billion have met the new statutory thresholds, according to a preliminary assessment of the CNL waivers. The expects to issue a Federal Register notice in late February 2007, when full-year 2006 data are available, that will identify those waivers that meet either of the new thresholds and thus subject to potential revocation.