- The chairman of Plastic Export Promotion Council (Plexconcil) has said that the United States(U.S) decision to terminate India’s designation as a beneficiary country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme is likely to affect plastic exports from India.
- He said some of the product segments which may face a decline in exports to the U.S. due to withdrawal of GSP concessions include (a)plastics raw materials (b)consumer and houseware items and (c)polyester films.
- This decision of U.S comes in the backdrop of issues like (a) India’s new rules on e-commerce that affected firms such as Amazon and Walmart (b) Data localisation rules which forced foreign companies to store their data locally (c)Price controls on medical devices(Cardiac stents) (d)Tariff on ICT products such as smart watches and high end mobile phones (e)Lack of greater market access for the US dairy industry and (f) Trade imbalance between India and the US.
- Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is a preferential tariff system extended by developed countries to developing countries which allows zero tariff imports from developing countries.The primary objective of GSP is to give development support to poor countries by promoting exports from them into the developed countries.
- The GSP of US provides preferential duty-free entry for up to 4,800 products from 129 designated countries.According to World Bank data, India is currently the largest beneficiary of the GSP programme.
- The Plastics Export Promotion Council (popularly known as PLEXCONCIL) is sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Department of Commerce,Government of India.It represents the exporting community in the Indian Plastics industry.
