Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Nepalese exporters are demanding to make CoO certification optional

Eleven Nepalese business organizations are urging the government to make the issuance of Country of Origin (CoO) certificate optional for the exporters as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) certification is enough.

The Kathmandu Post reported that on June 22, 2010, at a press meet, Naresh Das, President, Export Council of Nepal said, “Since Nepal is already a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there is no need of CoO in most importer countries,……GSP itself works as CoO. There are only a few countries that seek this sort of certification.”

Nepal is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The GSP is provided by WTO under its “trade facilitation theory” to boost exports of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and help them to compete in the international market. Under GSP, developed countries provide various facilities including zero or low import duty on products coming from developing countries.

At the press meet, exporters said that Nepal does not need CoO certificates to export in 25 countries including Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the US or Russia.

Currently, the exporters are required to pay NPR 0.12 on every NPR.100 export to the CoO issuing organization. The organizations are demanding either the government make CoO optional or pay 80% of the CoO for promotional purpose as per the rules of WTO.

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