[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 212 (Friday, November 1, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66699-66700]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-27773]


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OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE


Generalized System of Preferences (GSP); Deadline for Submission 
of Petitions for the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility 
Practices Review and Status of 2001 Annual GSP Review

AGENCY: Office of the United States Trade Representative.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: This notice announces the initiation of the 2002 Annual GSP 
Product and Country Eligibility Practices Review and sets the deadline 
for the submission of petitions on December 2, 2002. The notification 
of which petitions have been accepted for the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP 
Reviews and other relevant dates will be issued in the Federal 
Register.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Contact the GSP Subcommittee, Office 
of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), 1724 F Street, NW., 
Room F-220, Washington, DC 20508. The telephone number is (202) 395-
6971 and the facsimile number is (202) 395-9481.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The GSP provides for the duty-free 
importation of designated articles when imported from designated 
beneficiary developing countries. The GSP is authorized by title V of 
the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2461, et seq.), as amended (the 
``Trade Act''), and is implemented in accordance with Executive Order 
11888 of November 24, 1975, as modified by subsequent Executive Orders 
and Presidential Proclamations.

2002 Annual GSP Review

    The GSP regulations (15 CFR Part 2007) provide the schedule of 
dates for conducting an annual review unless otherwise specified by a 
Federal Register notice. Notice is hereby given that, in order to be 
considered in the 2002 Annual GSP Product and Country Eligibility 
Practices Review, all petitions to modify the list of articles eligible 
for duty-free treatment under GSP or to review the GSP status of any 
beneficiary developing country must be received by the GSP Subcommittee 
of the Trade Policy Staff Committee no later than 5 p.m., December 2, 
2002. Petitions submitted after the deadline will not be considered for 
review.
    Interested parties or foreign governments may submit petitions to: 
(1) Designate additional articles as eligible for GSP; (2) withdraw, 
suspend or limit GSP duty-free treatment accorded either to eligible 
articles under the GSP or to individual beneficiary developing 
countries with respect to specific GSP eligible articles; (3) waive the 
``competitive need limits'' for individual beneficiary developing 
countries with respect to specific GSP eligible articles; and (4) 
otherwise modify GSP coverage. As specified in 15 CFR 2007.1, all 
product petitions must include a detailed description of the product 
and the subheading of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) of the 
United States under which the product is classified.
    Interested parties may also submit petitions to have the GSP status 
of any eligible beneficiary developing country reviewed with respect to 
any of the designation criteria listed in sections 502(b) or 502(c) of 
the Trade Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(b) and (c)). Such petitions must comply 
with the requirements of 15 CFR 2007.0(b).

Requirements for Submissions

    All such submissions must conform to the GSP regulations set forth 
at 15 CFR part 2007, except as modified below. These regulations are 
also included in ``A Guide to the U.S. Generalized System of 
Preferences (GSP)'' (August 1991) (``GSP Guidebook''), available at 
www.ustr.gov. Petitioners are strongly advised to review the GSP 
regulations. Submissions that do not provide all information required 
by sections 2007.0 and 2007.1 of the GSP regulations will not be 
accepted for review, except upon a detailed showing in the submission 
that the petitioner made a good faith effort to obtain the information 
required. Petitions with respect to waivers of the ``competitive need 
limitations'' must meet the information requirements for product 
addition requests in section 2007.1(c) of the GSP regulations. A model 
petition format is available from the GSP Subcommittee and is included 
in the GSP Guide. Petitioners are requested to use this model petition 
format so as to ensure that all information requirements are met. 
Furthermore, interested parties submitting petitions that request 
action with respect to specific products should list on the first page 
of the petition the following information: (1) The requested action; 
(2) the United States HTS subheading in which the product is 
classified; and (3) if applicable, the beneficiary country.
    Petitions and requests must be submitted, in English, to the 
Chairman of the GSP Subcommittee, Trade Policy Staff Committee and must 
be received no later than December 2, 2002. Submissions in response to 
this notice will be subject to public inspection by appointment with 
the staff of the USTR

[[Page 66700]]

Public Reading Room, except for information granted ``business 
confidential'' status pursuant to 15 CFR 2003.6. If the submission 
contains business confidential information, a non-confidential version 
of the submission must also be submitted that indicates where 
confidential information was redacted by inserting asterisks where 
material was deleted. In addition, the confidential submission must be 
clearly marked ``BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL'' at the top and bottom of each 
and every page of the document. The public version which does not 
contain business confidential information must also be clearly marked 
at the top and bottom of each and every page (either ``PUBLIC VERSION'' 
or ``NON-CONFIDENTIAL'').
    In order to facilitate prompt consideration of submissions, USTR 
strongly urges and prefers electronic e-mail submissions in response to 
this notice. In the event that an e-mail submission is impossible, 
submissions should be made by facsimile. These submissions should be 
single copy transmissions in English with the total submission not to 
exceed 50 single-spaced pages and 3 megabytes as a digital file 
attached to an e-mail transmission. Persons making submissions by e-
mail should use the following subject line: ``2002 Annual GSP Review--
Petition.'' Documents must be submitted as either WordPerfect 
(``.WPD''), MSWord (``.DOC''), or text (''.TXT'') files. Documents 
should not be submitted as electronic image files or contain imbedded 
images (for example, ``.JPG'', ``PDF'', ``.BMP'', or ``.GIF'') as these 
type files are generally excessively large. E-mail submissions 
containing such files may not be accepted. Supporting documentation 
submitted as spreadsheets are acceptable as Quattro Pro or Excel, pre-
formatted for printing on 8\1/2\ x 11 inch paper. To the extent 
possible, any data attachments to the submission should be included in 
the same file as the submission itself, and not as separate files. 
Facsimile submissions should include, among other identifying 
information specified in the regulations, the following information at 
the top of the first page: ``2002 Annual GSP Review.''
    For any document containing business confidential information 
submitted as an electronic attached file to an e-mail transmission, the 
file name of the business confidential version should begin with the 
characters ``BC-'', and the file name of the public version should 
begin with the characters ``P-''. The ``P-'' or ``BC-'' should be 
followed by the name of the party (government, company, union, 
association, etc.) which is submitting the petition. Parties who make 
submissions by e-mail should not provide separate cover letters or 
messages in the message area of the e-mail; information that might 
appear in any cover letter should be included directly in the attached 
file containing the submission itself. The e-mail address for these 
submissions is [email protected]. Documents not submitted in accordance 
with these instructions might not be considered in this review.
    Public versions of all documents relating to this review will be 
available for review approximately three weeks after the due date by 
appointment in the USTR Public Reading Room, 1724 F Street NW., 
Washington, DC. Availability of documents may be ascertained, and 
appointments may be made from 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 
Monday through Friday, by calling (202) 395-6186.

Status of 2001 Annual GSP Review

    The GSP program expired on September 30, 2001, and was not 
reauthorized until August 6, 2002. Consequently, the announcement of 
which petitions were to be accepted for the 2001 Annual GSP Review was 
not made, except for the announcement in the August 28, 2002 Federal 
Register of those petitions accepted for the Special Three Country 
Review for Argentina, the Philippines and Turkey. Because of this 
delay, the schedule for completing the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP Reviews 
will be merged to the extent practicable. The notification of which 
petitions have been accepted for the 2002 and 2001 Annual GSP Reviews 
and other relevant dates, including the review schedule, will be issued 
in the Federal Register.

Steven Falken,
Executive Director for GSP, Chairman, GSP Subcommittee.
[FR Doc. 02-27773 Filed 10-31-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3901-01-P