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Monday, November 6, 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has confirmed that Caribbean trade access to Europe based on preferential treatment will continue to erode. Blair made these comments, at the opening of a Caribbean investment conference in London, Organized by the British Foreign Office. The conference was designed at helping the region, find new ways to develop its economy, in light of the waning preferential treatment, and the subsequent decline in sugar, bananas and other agricultural exports. Caribbean delegates attending the conference maintain, that they are willing to fight for the upkeep of the preferential treatment, and charge that if developed countries, plan to keep subsidizing their farmers, then they too, as developing states, should also be allowed to keep their preferential status.
Meanwhile in Ecuador, officials in that country continue to lobby for an increase in their access to the European market for their own banana crop. Ecuador was foremost amongst the Latin American countries, that argued against the preferential treatment given by the European Union, to its former colonies in the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Ecuador, the world's largest banana producer, is still unsatisfied with the Caribbean banana export tariffs, which they say is cutting into their share of the EU market. Officials in Ecuador say they plan to present a case to the World Trade Organization later this month, to have the entire tariff system eradicated, in favor of the implementation of a one rule, across the board regulation for all banana exporting countries.
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