BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 20. Kyrgyzstan has potential of exporting over 6,000 goods duty-free or at very low tariffs to the European Union as a beneficiary of the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+), the source at European Commission (EC) told Trend.
"GSP+ countries benefit from complete duty suspensions for approximately 66 percent of all products and tariff lines, including sensitive products," the source noted.
According to the EC, Kyrgyzstan is mostly exporting raw materials and agricultural products to the EU at the moment. The main European importers of Kyrgyz goods are Lithuania with imports worth 47 million euro in 2022, Germany (imports for 24 million euro), Poland (16 million euro), Slovakia (13 million euro) and Latvia (11 million euro).
"The European Union is an open market, where goods are imported based on competitive advantages such as quality and price. From that point of view, there is potential for Kyrgyzstan to become more competitive and increase its exports to the EU, which is the world’s largest trading block," the source said.
According to the source, trade turnover between Kyrgyzstan and the EU member states amounted to 1.3 billion euro in 2022, which is an increase of 3.9 times over 337.2 million euro in 2021.
The EU exported to Kyrgyzstan goods for 1.1 billion euro last year, and imported for 147.1 million euro.