The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it will follow procedures used in 2006 to gather information from industry and public sources for its advice to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in connection with the U.S. textile and apparel "commercial availability" provisions in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the U.S.-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA).
The ITC, an independent, nonpartisan, fact finding federal agency, is launching a new "umbrella" investigation, as requested by the USTR.
Under the new investigation, the ITC will conduct individual product-specific reviews on the probable economic effect of granting duty-free and quota-free treatment to certain apparel imports from eligible AGOA, CBTPA, and ATPDEA beneficiary countries.
The AGOA, CBTPA, and ATPDEA extend duty-free and quota-free treatment to imports of apparel made in eligible beneficiary countries from fabrics made in the United States of U.S. yarns.
They also authorize the President, on request of an interested party, to grant preferential treatment to apparel made in eligible beneficiary countries from fabrics or yarns that "cannot be supplied by the domestic industry in commercial quantities in a timely manner," regardless of the source of the fabrics or yarns.
Before proclaiming such preferential treatment, the President is required to submit a report to the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate's Committee on Finance that sets forth the proposed action, the reasons for it, advice from the ITC on the probable economic effect of the action, and advice from the appropriate industry advisory committee.
The ITC's advice will be provided on an ongoing basis during 2007 under Investigation No. 332-484, Commercial Availability of Apparel Inputs (2007): Effect of Providing Preferential Treatment to Apparel from Sub-Saharan African, Caribbean Basin, and Andean Countries.
The ITC will submit its advice to USTR in a series of classified reports, with each report provided on or about the 42nd day after receipt of a commercial availability request. A public version of each report will be available shortly after the ITC submits its report to the USTR.
