BAFA has the task to protect various branches of the European and, thus, domestic industry from uncontrolled market access by third countries. For this purpose, it grants import licences and surveillance documents for certain items of trade and industry which are subject to quantitative restriction or supervision by the European regulations. Thereby, it translates the common trade policy of the European Union into individual decisions.

The focus of granting licences is on the textile and clothing sector. The majority are imports from countries which concluded bilateral agreements with the European Union on the basis of the World Textile Agreement (WTA) and maintained them in the framework of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) adopted by the GATT-Uruguay-Round. Besides this, BAFA administers so-called autonomous, i.e. one-sided quotas for third countries with which there exist no bilateral agreements. In the framework of outward processing BAFA grants import licences in the form of prior authorizations for clothing manufactured in third countries. In addition, BAFA issues import licences on the basis of specific trade fair quotas for textiles and clothing exhibited by the supplying countries at the Berlin Import Fair and which are subject to purchasing contracts that were concluded during the fair.

In the case of non-textile goods BAFA administers autonomous quotas of the European Union for the import of shoes, ceramics and porcelain of Chinese origin and monitors the import of shoes having their origin in Vietnam. In the steel sector BAFA grants import licences executing the Iron and Steel Regime of the European Community and monitors import quantities and prices.

In co-operation with the authorities of the countries of origin, the European Commission and the German customs offices, the Central Office dealing with Circumvention Imports in the Textile Sector in BAFA examines and prevents cases of false declarations of non-preferential imports in the field of textiles.

In case of the import of liberalised goods, BAFA evaluates reports from e.g. petroleum, natural gas, fuel areas and observes – by the help of surveillance documents – the import of so-called sensitive goods, like iron and steel products of different supplier countries, as well as of certain goods from China and Vietnam and provides information and statistics on trade policy to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology as well as to the European Commission.

BAFA processes statistical data referring to production, foreign trade and labour market to obtain interpretable reports.

BAFA publishes the conditions applying to the granting of import licences and surveillance documents as announcements in the Federal Gazette. These announcements may also be found at http://www.bafa.de