The DCTS will help UK businesses access hundreds of products from around the globe at lower prices, reducing costs for UK consumers and is claimed to be one of the world’s most generous trading schemes with developing countries.
The scheme will extend tariff cuts to hundreds of more products exported from developing countries, going further than the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences.
This is on top of the thousands of products that developing countries can already export to the UK duty-free (and will mean 99Â per cent of goods imported from Africa, for example will enter the UK duty-free).
The scheme means that a wide variety of products – from clothes and shoes to foods that aren’t widely produced in the UK including olive oil and tomatoes – will benefit from lower or zero tariffs.
The Developing Countries Trading Scheme ensures that British businesses can benefit from more than £750 million per year of reduced import costs, leading to more choice and lower costs for UK consumers to help with the cost of living.
Secretary of State for International Trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said UK businesses can look forward to less red tape and lower costs, incentivising firms to import goods from developing countries.
The DCTS covers 65 countries across Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas including some of the poorest countries in the world.
It removes some seasonal tariffs, meaning more options for British supermarkets and shops all year round. For example, cucumbers, which can’t be grown in the UK in the winter, will now be tariff-free during this period for the majority of countries in the scheme.
The scheme also simplifies complex trade rules such as rules of origin – the rules dictating what proportion of a product must be made in its country of origin. This makes it easier for businesses like family-owned textile business DBL Group from Bangladesh to export, encouraging developing countries to play a larger role in the global trade community.
