NEW TRADING SCHEME. British Ambassador to the Philippines Laure Beaufils delivers her speech at the launch of the British Investment Partnerships (BIP) in the Philippines at The Peninsula Manila, Makati City on Thursday (March 30, 2022). Aside from the BIP, the British government will also launch the Developing Countries Trading Schemes this year. (PNA photo by Kris Crismundo)
MANILA – United Kingdom’s Developing Countries Trading Schemes (DCTS), a new trading scheme launched by the British government, will cover more tariff lines than the current UK Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) and the European Union GSP Plus (EU GSP+), the British envoy here said.
British Ambassador to the Philippines Laure Beaufils told reporters over the weekend that under the DCTS, more products from developing countries will be treated with zero tariffs upon entering the UK market.
“The DCTS was developed after quite a lot of consultation, including in the Philippines, to really learn from GSP+ and think about what works well and what can we do even better. So, in many ways, it is the top best of its class,” Beaufils said in an interview following the visit of UK Minister for Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan here on March 30 and 31.
The DCTS was announced by the UK in 2022 and it targets to implement the new trading scheme this year.
Under the DCTS, the British government eyes to include 65 developing countries from the different parts of the world -- 37 from Africa, 18 from Asia, eight from Oceania, and two from the Americas.
When the UK was still part of the EU, 6,274 products from the Philippines enter the EU market at zero tariff through the EU GSP+.
After the UK withdrawal from the European Union in January 2020, the British government is implementing the UK GSP to transition the trading benefits for developing countries from EU GSP+ to DCTS.
The British Embassy here earlier said the DCTS will further boost trade between the UK and the Philippines, which is currently at 2 billion euros annually.
“The DCTS has made improvements on rules of origins, for example, or that has added new product lines, so it’s really going to be benefitting Filipino exporters to the UK in particular and the vast majority of Filipino exporters will find that they can benefit from DCTS,” Beaufils added. (PNA)
