EU GSP! Garment exporters facing hurdles in registration process

Garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, especially those catering to the European Union (EU), have a new problem to deal with!

As per media reports, groups that have multiple entities but one Tax Identification Number (TIN) are facing trouble in getting registration numbers required for the units under the EU’s Registered Exporter (REX) certification system to avail the GSP facility.

It may be mentioned here that Bangladesh Government, as per instruction from the EU, introduced REX for the country’s exporters who made their shipment to the EU in July last year by giving registration numbers to 10 exporters.

Further, the Commerce Ministry had asked all the exporters to get registered with a database by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) by December last year to get a unique registration number to avail the GSP facilities in the EU market.

The recent developments are worrying the garment exporters! There is an apprehension among them that export might hamper in the EU as only one registered exporter (REX) number was given against each taxpayer identification number, but many of the companies were running more than one entity against a TIN number.

Citing the EU regulation, the EPB informed exporters that there was no scope for providing more than one registration number against a TIN number, as the IT system of EU allowed one registration against a unique number.