Cambodia will benefit greatly from exports under Britain's GSP

Cambodia's exports will benefit more under the UK's GSP for all types of goods with the exception of weapons and explosives, duty-free and quota-free quotas after the concession will be implemented from 2021 onwards.

Government officials in the garment and investment sectors expect the GSP to not only boost Cambodia's exports, but it also helps to offset some of the loss of EBA in the European market, especially to attract more investment to Cambodia to produce, process and export packaging to the UK market.

H.E. Sok Sopheak, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Commerce, said that Cambodia will hold talks with the United Kingdom to restore export-import relations between the two countries during the Crisis and post-crisis COVID-19. He added that Cambodia will discuss measures to restore normal exports and imports and extract what has fallen which caused by the epidemic COVID-19 crisis.

H.E. Sok Sopheak said "When Britain seceded from the European Union, it did not use the joint registration system, so we have to work administratively with the UK for us to issue a certificate or we set up a system to recognize the rules of origin, which is the next thing we need to do."

Kaing Monica, deputy secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, said the GSP would replace the EBA, which would boost exports from Cambodia to England about 100 percent for exporting Cambodian goods, not 20 percent tax as when Britain was with Europe.

He stressed that the GSP provides Cambodia with better opportunities to boost exports, in which Cambodia can export all kinds of goods to the UK duty-free of import, especially the provision of tariffs on 40 other items subject to quotas below the tariff line.

He said that for the EU, the UK is the largest market for Cambodia's exports, including the UK's exit from the EU and established the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), it will make all goods subject to quotas below the customs line duty-free.

"It means we can export all kinds of goods to the UK without import duties and quotas, so it would be nice if Britain has not left the EU and has its own new preferential tariff system: exports to 40 tariff lines have been removed under the EBA, we are still subject to British taxes." he added.

Lok Oknha Lim Heng, Vice President of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce, agreed that the general preferential system was an incentive for investors and attract more new investors to invest in Cambodia by providing features. He said the GSP would replace losses in the EBA, which the EU had decided to withdraw from Cambodia.

Cambodia exports products to the United Kingdom, such as clothing, footwear, rice and bicycles, while imports include cars and machinery.

It should be noting that in 2019, trade between Cambodia and the United Kingdom totaled more than 1 billion US dollars. In the first three months of 2020, Cambodia exported a total of more than 200 million US dollars, including more than 190 million US dollars in garments and $ 15 million in other goods.