US Imposes 3.4% Tariffs on Egypt Imports – Official

The Chairman of the Egyptian Chemical Export Council Dr. Waleed Helal today announced that the United States is imposing 3.4 percent customs duties on imports from Egypt.

The  CEC Chairman further informed Amwal Al Ghad on Wednesday that the Council decided to meet with the Egyptian Ministry of Trade so as to underscore reasons behind the US decree on imposing the 3.4 percent import duties.

The US administration has not yet announced the motives behind imposing Egyptian import duties, Helal noted, citing a politically-driven decree in the awake of the June 30 Uprising erupted in Egypt.

Moreover, the Egyptian official has warned against possible negative repercussions of the recently-imposed US tariffs on the future of Egyptian imports to the US market. He said there were not any custom duties imposed before on the Egyptian exports to the US until last mid-December.

Helal also referred to Amwal Al Ghad to the 5 percent decline in the size of Egyptian exports to the US market, to record around EGP 8.4 billion throughout 2013.

It is worth mentioning that the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program – which offers duty-free access to the U.S. market to a wide array of Egyptian producers –announced reaching its term last July. The GSP is scheduled to be re-activated within the second quarter of 2014.