PDF, GB, 56 p., 1,3 Mo - Femise

Total 29,305,151 14,425,977 43,731,128 67.01 32.99
Source: Obtained from www.capmas.gov.eg.
3.1 Summary of interviews
Twenty-two firms belonging to seven main sectors were asked about their experience
with EU rules of origin. The sectors covered by the interviews included: food and
beverages, textiles and ready-made garments, leather and footwear, building
materials, chemicals, furniture, and engineering industries. Although it is a small
sample and does not reflect the size of the manufacturing sector or the exporting firms
in Egypt, the interviewed firms are the largest private sector exporters to the EU. In
many cases the owners of these firms are the head of the export councils of the sector
to which these firms belong. Top management and export managers in these firms
were interviewed. Annex 2 includes a listing of the name of interviewed firms
together with some background information such as their size in terms of capital and
number of employees.
A summary of the interviews follows:
Certification of Origin:
The majority of respondents claimed that they do not face any problem regarding
certificates of origin. Several reasons could explain these responses, though it was not
possible to distinguish between these:
• Firms are using 100 percent domestic inputs (unlikely).
• Firms do not export to the EU because they cannot access the EU market for
other reasons than ROO. These reasons could include the difficulty to comply
with sanitary requirements or due to price constraints or lack of knowledge
about consumers’ tastes.
• Some firms are approved exporters; consequently they do not worry much
about certificates of origin.
• Proving origin is mainly the responsibility of the importers who benefit from
the preferential treatment. Exporters are only responsible for issuing the
certificate of origin, which is approved by GOEIC. GOEIC does not verify
origin status; it takes what exporters certify as a fact, unless something looks
very suspicious 4 , or if it receives a complaint from the importing country’s
customs authorities.
• Tariff rates imposed on certain goods are low and therefore importers are not
concerned about proving origin and are willing to pay import tariffs instead of
imposing ROO requirement o exporters.
• In many cases, exporters are producing goods according to direct orders from
EU importers and comply with their requirements. A good example could be
exporters of ready-made garments, who receive designs, fabrics, accessories,
4 In one case an exporter was trying to export imported apple to an Arab country as originating in Egypt. GOEIC was suspicious because
Egypt does not export apples and it was off-season.