BRUSSELS, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The European Commission granted duty-free access on Tuesday to 16 developing countries for thousands of products, to start next year and run until the end of 2011, it said in a statement.
The countries are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Sri Lanka and Venezuela.
The countries' status will give them special trade preferences under the GSP+ scheme, in addition to standard concessions in the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). (Reporting by Jeremy Smith)