Amendments to Regulations on common rules for textile imports published
2012-3-1

  
  

On 16 December 2011, the European Commission adopted two new Regulations, to amend the classification of categories of textile products under its common rules for imports from third countries. The two Commission Regulations, numbered 1321/2011 and 1322/2011, were published on 17 December 2011 in the EU’s Official Journal.
Hong Kong’s textile and clothing sellers will already be familiar with framework “safeguard” Regulations 3030/93 and 517/94, which are both amended by these newly published Commission Regulations.
It will be recalled that the textiles and clothing sectors were a notable exception to the progressive liberalisation of trade in manufactured goods, and only since the beginning of 2009 trade in textiles and clothing has been fully liberalised. There are no longer any quantitative restrictions in the EU on textile and clothing imports originating in the Chinese mainland. As a result of this liberalisation, the Chinese mainland has become the EU's largest provider of textiles and clothing, and continues to capture market share in Europe.
Regulation 1321/2011 states that the common rules for imports of certain textile products from third countries should be updated to take account of amendments to Council Regulation 2658/87 (on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff). Such amendments also affect certain codes in framework Regulation 3030/93 on common rules for imports of certain textile products from third countries. Annex I to Regulation 3030/93 is therefore accordingly amended by the Annex to Regulation 1321/2011.
Hong Kong sellers should take particular note of the lists in the Annex, as these set out the latest descriptions, per category, of textile products, together with the relevant CN codes. The text inserted before the descriptions should also be examined. For example, point 1 states that: “…the wording of the description of goods is considered to be of indicative value only, since the products covered by each category are determined, within this Annex, by CN codes. Where there is an “ex” symbol in front of a CN code, the products covered in each category are determined by the scope of the CN code and by that of the corresponding description.”