Japan is reviewing its trade preference policy for developing countries in a move that could revoke preferences for about 450 items imported from China, Reuters cited an official at the Finance Ministry as saying on Tuesday. The review of the trade regime aimed to promote economic development, known as Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), comes as China, Japan's biggest trading partner since 2009, readies to surpass Japan as the world's second biggest economy. It also comes as the European Union plans to start reform of its trade preference regime for developing countries, of which China is also a beneficiary, next year. Japan plans to remove goods from certain countries from its GSP list for three years if they have accounted for more than 50 percent of total imports of the item on average for the past three years, a report on tax guidelines for the next fiscal year showed. As a result, about 450 items imported from China would face tariff rises, among them plastic goods and clothing, said a Finance Ministry official dealing with tariff issues. Japan imported $97.8 billion worth of goods from China in 2009, data from the Japan External Trade Organization showed. "We are not doing things with any specific countries in mind. We have started taking these measures ... so that by removing competitive goods, other developing countries can benefit more," said the official, who declined to be identified as he is not directly responsible for the decision. Japan's GSP gave trade benefits for goods produced in 140 developing countries and 14 regions worth 1.6 trillion yen in the year to March 2010. Imports from China accounted for 86 percent of that, data from the Finance Ministry showed.
