Proposed new rules setting out favourable trading terms for developing countries

Date: 17/09/1998

known as the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), have been endorsed by the full Commission. The main change is to extend tariff concessions for Central and Latin American countries to include industrial goods and to incorporate new incentives on labour and environmental standards. As the effects of the Asian financial crisis on developing countries are not yet fully known, the Commission has postponed updating the scale used to calculate countries' concessions based on relative poverty.