The Department of Finance seeks feedback on proposals for the renewal of Canada’s tariff preference programs for imports from developing and least developed countries (LDCs), two of which are set to expire at the end of 2024.
Under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), Canada currently extends non-reciprocal preferential tariffs to imports from developing and least developed countries through two programs, in order to facilitate and promote their export-driven industrialization and development:
• The General Preferential Tariff (GPT) offers duty-free treatment or reduced tariffs to 106 developing countries on 84 per cent of tariff lines.
• The Least Developed Country Tariff (LDCT) offers duty-free treatment for essentially all goods, excluding only over-quota supply-managed products, from 49 LDCs.
Legislative authority for the GPT and LDCT programs expires and has been renewed by Parliament every 10 years since their establishment. The programs were last renewed in 2015, and are currently set to expire on December 31, 2024.
The comments received will help inform the Government’s legislative proposals to Parliament for the renewal of these programs and we will seek to notify consequential program changes well before they would come into force, on January 1, 2025.
Link: Public Consultation on the Renewal of Canada’s Tariff Preference Programs for Developing Countries