The Ministry of Commerce in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia is pleased to announce that the Obama Administration of the United States of America has agreed to provide new duty-free treatment to Least Developed Beneficiary Developing Countries (LDBDC) and African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Countries.
The new duty-free treatment aims to promote poverty alleviation and economics growth in the poorest countries. It is the outcome of the Obama Administration’s Annual Product Review under the General System of Preference (GPS) program – a 40-year-old trade preference program under which the United States provides duty-free treatment to many import beneficiary developing countries and additional products for (LDBDC). Under the GSP program, approximately 5,000 products from 122 beneficiary developing countries and territories, including 43 least-developed countries, are eligible for duty-free treatment when exported to the United States, Nearly 1,500 of these products are reserved for duty-free treatment for LDBDCs only. In 2015, the total value of imports that entered the United States duty-free under GSP was $17.4 billion.
During the Press Conference, H.E. PAN Sorasak, Minister of Commerce thanked the Obama Administration and the United States as a whole for providing this duty-free treatment. He remarked that with this additional duty-free treatment, Cambodia will be eligible to send travel goods such as luggage, backpacks, handbags, and wallets to the United States territories. Likewise, the American consumers and businesses would no longer spend much costs of transporting goods as well.
