About 100 countries could lose their special access to EU markets under a proposed change to the Generalized System of Preferences, which grants tariff breaks to the exports from certain countries. The planned reform would begin in 2014, and would eliminate countries with high or middle incomes from the GSP and instead focus on poorer, developing countries. Some of the countries that would be affected are Russia, Brazil, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Other countries will technically lose their GSP status, but most of them have other agreements in place such as free-trade deals or other treaties, so they won't be greatly affected. Currently 176 countries qualify for the preferential tariffs; this number would be reduced to about 75. The total value of imports to the EU that qualify would drop from €60 billion in 2009 to €37.7 billion in 2014. The new rules also provide safeguards that protect European industry from a flood of zero-tariff products: The tariff preferences will be suspended if a given country's exports to the EU grow by 13.5 percent or more in a year, or if imports of specific products exceed 6 percent of total EU imports of the product. However, Pakistan, the Philippines and Ukraine could apply for the zero-level tariffs under the new scheme.

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