Changes to preferential arrangements for several countries

21/12/22

Starting January 1, 2023, some changes to the preferential arrangements with Vietnam and Madagascar will come into effect. Since December 2, 2022, changes to the preferential arrangement with Ivory Coast have already taken effect.

What does this mean for your business?

For your business, the changes to the preferential arrangements mean that you should be aware of changes to the preferential origin documentation to be used when trading with these countries and wanting to claim preferential duty rates upon import into the European Union.

It concerns changes from the use of REX origin statements to EUR.1 and the other way around. This change in origin documentation also affects the use of the document codes in your import declaration. As such please make sure you update your system accordingly or check whether your customs broker is declaring the correct document codes on your behalf.

Furthermore, in relation to Vietnam you should be aware that only preferential origin can still be claimed under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and no longer under GSP. So, if your goods did comply with the origin rules under GSP and not under the FTA you might want to investigate the changes required to your supply chain to still benefit from preferential duty rates upon import of your goods into the European Union.

More background

For both Ivory Coast and Madagascar initially an EUR.1 certificate was required to obtain preference under the Interim Economic Partnership Agreements the European Union has with these countries. However, this has changed to an REX origin statement for Ivory Coast as of December 2, 2022 and will change for Madagascar as of January 1, 2023.

Since for Vietnam only the FTA is still in place as of January 1, 2023 an EUR.1 certificate is to be used.

In relation to the above Dutch Customs has published a news alert on their website also detailing the changes to the document codes to be used when filling an import declaration in the Netherlands and claiming preference under the above-mentioned agreements. For more details please see the news alert.