According to U Zaw Min Win, chair of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), the EU may be preparing to revoke the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) status granted to Myanmar.

The President of UMFCCI said the ambassador of the EU himself informed him of this latest developments. Granted in 2013, the GSP provides Myanmar with a duty-free export scheme to the EU markets, considerably contributing to foster its garment sector in the past 5 years, which represent 70% of exports to the EU block.

The withdrawal from the GSP scheme will likely deal a blow to the booming garment sector employing somewhere between 500,000 to 1 Million people across the country.