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16.12.09

Yesterday, at the WTO HQ in Geneva, Ambassadors of the EU and the Latin American countries involved in the dispute finally put an end to “one of the longest running “sagas” in the history of the post-WWII multilateral trading system,” as the banana issue was called by Pascal Lamy.

The EU will gradually bring down its import tariff on bananas from Latin America, from the present rate of EUR 176 per ton, at first to EUR 148 per ton and then, starting from 2017 (at the earliest) – to EUR 114 per ton, as well as will mobilize up to EUR 200 mln for the main African and Caribbean banana exporting countries that are their former colonies, which from now will have to face the serious, full-scale competition with banana producers from Latin America in the EU market.

In response, the involved Latin American countries and the US have agreed to withdraw their complaints related to the banana dispute, which have been under consideration in the WTO.

Director General of the WTO was pleased to welcome the agreement on bananas. “This has been one of the most technically complex, politically sensitive and commercially meaningful legal disputes ever brought to the WTO,” Pascal Lamy said.