CABO VERDE AND THE EU GSP

Economic Impact

Most of the EU's imports from Cabo Verde are eligible for GSP+ preferences. Eligible imports were volatile over the years and contracted sharply in 2020, then strongly rebounded until 2023, but dropped again in 2024. Cabo Verde's preference utilisation rate was around 90% in most recent years but somewhat dropped to just above 80% in 2023 and 2024. The preference utilisation is particularly high for apparel and footwear (close to 100%). The utilisation rate of the most important product category, fish products, dropped to 89% in 2023 and 82% in 2024.

The largest product sections under the GSP+ (€ million, 2024)

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND MONITORING PRIORITIES

Following a sharp decrease in GDP during the COVID-19 crisis, Cabo Verde has shown a remarkable economic turnaround in recent years, with a GDP growth of over 7% in 2024. During the pandemic, Cabo Verde designed and timely implemented efficient measures to preserve the country’s economic and social fabric, which were adopted in close cooperation with international partners. Reflecting Cabo Verde’s economic progress, the World Bank first classified it as an Upper-Middle-Income Country in July 2025.

Over the period 2023 to 2025, the following positive developments were noted:

• Human rights: Adopted progressive legal frameworks and improvements in access to justice, press freedom and gender equality. Important efforts have been made in combating violence against women and children abuses and improving prison overcrowding.
• Labour rights: Made progress combating certain types of child labour, as well as in promoting equal pay, addressing discrimination at work and against migrant workers.
• Environment/Climate: Advanced climate objectives.
• Governance: Strengthened investigative, judicial, and financial response capability to drug trafficking.

Remaining issues and priorities for future engagement are:

• Human rights: Further progress on substance is needed in the adoption of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation and strengthening prevention, protection and access to justice for victims of gender-based violence and child abuse. Addressing prison overcrowding and staffing shortages also remains urgent and there is a need to strengthen data collection and public reporting on human rights violations.
• Labour rights: More progress is needed on fostering social dialogue, establishing effective trade unions, enforcing equal pay and child labour protections. The number and capacity of labour inspectors should also be strengthened, data collection improved and social protection programmes to address poverty enhanced.
• Environment/Climate: Implementation remains uneven, with key legal frameworks still requiring updating or completion, and institutional capacity remaining limited. More attention is needed to effective and timely implementation of relevant conventions, including through improvement of reporting and monitoring systems.
• Governance: Drug trafficking and rising domestic consumption remain a challenge. There is a need to bolster anti-drug trafficking efforts through regional cooperation and intelligence-sharing, while stepping up drug prevention; strengthening operational capacity of the Corruption Prevention Council and finalising accession to the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) to reinforce anti-corruption mechanisms.

For more information about Cabo Verde's compliance with the GSP conventions, see the convention compliance database. Also see the factsheet on Cabo Verde.

Monitoring priorities during the reporting period 2024-2025

For the reporting period 2024-2025, the EU has focussed its monitoring activities on eight priority areas. Despite the difficult context, Cabo Verde maintained the effective implementation of international conventions and good rates in human rights and corruption perception indexes. Elections (local, parliamentary, and presidential) between October 2020 and October 2021 fully complied with international standards, including on transparency and peaceful acceptance of results.