Preferential market access for goods

Most major trading partners provide duty-free, quota-free (DFQF) market access or preferential tariffs, as well as preferential rules of origin, for products imported from LDCs. Specific provisions have been put in place to enable trade preferences to developing countries, with special treatment for LDCs, in the context of WTO rules and principles. 

The WTO Database on Preferential Trade Arrangements contains information for each WTO member providing or benefiting from non-reciprocal preferential trade arrangements. The WTO Regional Trade Agreements Database has information on reciprocal preferential trade agreements between two or more parties, including duty-free tariff line coverage and preferential rules of origin. The table below draws from the databases and the WTO Secretariat Note on Market Access for Products and Services of Export Interest to Least Developed Countries, 30 October 2023 (document WT/COMTD/LDC/W/71).  Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy. The information contained herein does not replace legal texts or official policy documents.

Major multilateral non-reciprocal preference schemes for LDCs undertaken by WTO members, 2023 (or latest available year)

*The information for China refers to 2021. Since January 2022, LDCs that have established diplomatic relations with China are eligible to preferential tariffs on 98% of tariff lines, implemented after an exchange of notes with China. See the WTO preferential tarde arrangements database.

** The European Union's Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) regulation, which includes the LDC-specific Everything but Arms scheme, expires at the end of 2027 and is under review. Should negotiations on the review be concluded successfully before 2027, the regulation would be substituted with the new one.  

***Refers to the United States' Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) for least developed beneficiary countries. Legal authorization for duty-free treatment under the GSP programme lapsed on 1 January 2021. The renewal of the GSP is being considered by the Congress of the United States. The United States also offers 96.9 per cent DFQF coverage to eligible Sub-Saharan countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is not LDC-specific.

What happens after graduation?

Some LDC-specific preferential schemes contain provisions that extend eligibility beyond the date of graduation. For example, countries graduating from the LDC category automatically retain eligibility to the European Union's Everything but Arms initiative for a period of three years. In other markets, some graduated countries have retained preferential treatment for a period after the date of graduation either because there are no automatic procedures for their removal from the list of beneficiaries, or because there is an administrative lag, or a combination of reasons.

The General Assembly, in its resolution 67/221, invited trading partners that have not established procedures for extending or phasing out preferential market access, inter alia, DFQF treatment, to clarify in a predictable manner, as a general measure or at the consultative mechanism, their position with regard to the extension of the LDC-specific preferences, the number of years of the extension or the details concerning the gradual phasing out of the measures. In October 2023, WTO members adopted a decision encouraging preference-granting members to provide a smooth and sustainable transition before withdrawing DFQF market access after graduation. Once countries have graduated and no longer benefit from the LDC-specific arrangements, they may, depending on eligibility criteria, continue to have access to preferential market access schemes under the standard GSP schemes where applicable, other applicable non-reciprocal arrangements, regional agreements or bilateral agreements, including Economic Partnership Agreements.

The European Union, the United Kingdom and Norway have non-reciprocal preferential market access schemes that lie, in terms of coverage, in between the LDC-specific ones and the standard GSP. The Special Arrangement for Sustainable Development and Good Governance (GSP+) in the European Union, under current regulations, grants duty-free access to most of the products covered by the standard GSP. Eligibility for GSP+ requires the ratification and implementation of 27 conventions on human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and good governance, and meeting certain vulnerability criteria. In the United Kingdom, low-income and lower-middle income countries meeting 
certain vulnerability criteria are eligible for Enhanced Preferences under the Developing Country Trading Scheme, which grants duty-free market access for 85 per cent of tariff lines.5 Under Norway’s GSP+ scheme, beneficiaries are granted duty-free access for clothes and textile products and certain agricultural goods, and lower tariffs for others in comparison with standard GSP beneficiaries. All lower-middle-income countries with populations of less than 75 million and low-income countries are eligible for GSP+. 

In 2023, Canada amended its Customs Tariff legislation, extending the mandate for the General Preferential Tariff (GPT) and Least Developed Country Tariff programmes until the end of 2034 and creating the authority for a new General Preferential Tariff Plus (GPT+) programme which, once operationalized, is intended to provide tariff benefits beyond those of the GPT programme to countries that conform to international norms 
relating to sustainable development and labour and human rights.