This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 5 March 2020.

For the Commission

The President

Ursula VON DER LEYEN

( 1 ) OJ L 176, 30.6.2016, p. 55 .

( 2 ) OJ C 192, 7.6.2019, p. 30 .

( 3 ) OJ C 151, 3.5.2019, p. 4 .

( 4 ) OJ C 48, 12.2.2020, p. 18 .

( 5 ) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/199 of 13 February 2020 making imports of continuous filament glass fibre products originating in Egypt subject to registration ( OJ L 42, 14.2.2020, p. 10 ).

( 6 ) Company A requested anonymity on the grounds that they would expose themselves to a significant risk of commercial retaliation should it be perceived by certain producers to act in a manner that runs counter to their interests.

( 7 ) See Presidential Decree No (35) of the Arab Republic of Egypt, dated 15.2.2003.

( 8 ) Decree of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt No 330 of the year 2015 ‘On the establishment of the Suez Canal Economic Zone’, 19 August 2015.

( 9 ) In July 2016, Egypt replaced the ‘general sales tax’ with VAT. While there are certain differences between the two tax regimes, both tax regimes permitted producers of goods to deduct the tax previously paid, thereby accumulating credits when the amount of tax paid exceeds the amount of tax collected from customers, notably export-oriented companies.

( 10 ) Art. 22, law 67 of 2016.

( 11 ) Indeed the majority of the VAT/other indirect tax receivables reported in the 2016-2018 Annual Reports refer to foreign purchases under the 10 % GST regime, which was in force until July 2016.

( 12 ) Several international publications on tax matters confirm that reimbursement of VAT paid upfront in Egypt is extremely difficult (LINK). The World Bank report ‘Doing Business in Egypt 2020’ ranks Egypt in 156th place out of 190 in tax matters.

( 13 ) Database of specific products under ‘surveillance’ or monitoring imported into the Union customs territory maintained by the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union.

( 14 ) Anti-dumping proceeding published ( OJ C 68, 21.2.2019, p. 29 ); anti-subsidy proceeding published ( OJ C 167, 16.5.2019, p. 11 ).

( 15 ) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/724 ( OJ L 107, 25.4.2017, p. 4 ), recital (149).

( 16 ) European Commission, Directorate-General for Trade, Directorate H, Rue de la Loi 170, 1040 Brussels, Belgium.

COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2020/379 of 5 March 2020 imposing a provisional countervailing duty on imports of continuous filament glass fibre products originating in Egypt