Brussels, 18/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Union signed with Laos a bilateral agreement on trade in textile products that widens, practically without limits, the countries export possibilities to the European market, in line with EU policy towards less developed countries (LDC). The opening, already provisionally enforced, as of December 1998, enables Laos to increase from EUR 71 to 93 million the value of is EU deliveries in the space of one year, thus passing from the 64th to the 54th ranked textile provider on the Community market. The new agreement, which provides Laotian operators a more clear and precise legislative framework, was welcomed by Laos as "a historic gesture of inestimable aid" and by the EU as a "new stage," a source of "mutual benefits."
The objective of the agreement, drafted in June 1998, is two fold: enable development without barriers to Laotian exports, now held accountable for the origin of its products and to end to circumventing of the textile quotas of other supplying countries via Laos, thanks to more effective administrative and practical co-operation. No qualitative restriction is foreseen if a warning ceiling (above which quotas may be introduced), establish at a rate (1 to 2%, according to the categories, of all the textile European imports) that is, according to the Commission, "sufficiently generous to ensure Laos of the continuation without barriers of its exports." The eight most sensitive categories are subordinate to a system of double surveillance (shirts, T-shirts, blouses, trousers, pullovers, etc.), notably implying a licence-based regime. During the validity of the agreement (three years renewable), Laos undertakes not to increase it customs duties on European textiles and neither party will be able to introduce non-tariff barriers on textile products and clothes from its partner.
The agreement was signed by the Portuguese representative to the EU 15's Committee of Permanent Representatives in Brussels, Vasco Valente, by the European Commission's deputy Director General for Trade, Morgens Peter Carl and by the Laotian Ambassador, Sompradith Vorasane. Visibly moved, Mr. Vorasane, thanked the EU and its Member States for this "historic gesture of inestimable aid." The value of the trade represents "1.7% of the global capital invested in the whole of the economy and 30.4% of our exports," he announced. In referring to the previous fraud, he suggested additional safeguards, in offering to "collaborate with the EU specialists to establish, for example, a modern and effective system of monitoring at the point of arrival and departure of our goods, enabling for the revealing of illegal international fraudsters and also avoid possible sudden severing of contracts which would be detrimental for our, still poor, country."