Round up
Bananas: ACP countries “sacrificed on the altar of liberalisation” says ACP chair, bananas group
The European Commission has sacrificed development to trade liberalisation as a result of the decision to allow a further cut in the duties imposed on bananas imported from Latin America. This is how Gerhard Hiwat, Ambassador for Suriname and chair of the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) working group on bananas, described the decision in a statement he made on 6 April in Brussels. This move was also condemned by African Union Trade Ministers in a declaration they issued on 20 March. The decision could deal a serious blow to Cameroon and Ivory Coast, the main ACP countries exporting bananas to the EU.
A fruit vendor preparing his stall in Merkato market, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 2007.
© Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
The Commission announced a proposal on 12 March that the tariff should be cut from €176 per tonne to €136 by 2011, the idea being to have it taper off to reach €114 per tonne by 2019. The EU institution hopes this measure will help settle its long-running dispute with Latin American banana producers, mainly Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica. According to an initial estimate, this cut would mean lost income of “at least €350M” for the ACP banana exporters during the liberalisation period (2009-2019), says Mr Hiwat. The Commission has recommended an aid package of roughly €100M to offset these losses during the 2010-2013 period. This is not enough, say the ACP countries who are calling for the duties to be cut to €150 and frozen at this level for a four-year period, topped off with a set of flanking measures.
Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo, Ambassador for the Dominican Republic, says the current tariffs have not prevented Latin American countries from boosting their exports to the European market, while ACP exporters have witnessed a decline in their market shares. The Dominican official also highlights the fact that the banana trade in Latin America is dominated by the multinationals, whereas in the ACP countries “families are the foundation of our political stability”.
According to figures from the Central Organisation of Pineapple, Banana and Mango Producers-Exporters (OCAB), the total level of bananas ACP countries exported to the EU in 2008 (918,376 tonnes) was less than the volume accounted for by Ecuador alone (roughly 1.3M tonnes) and a far cry from the amount exported by Latin America as a whole (3.9M tonnes). ACP banana producers account for one-fifth of bananas exported to the European Union, a percentage that has been remarkably consistent over the last three years, even though the level of banana exports has shown a mild increase.
Cameroon is the leading exporter of ACP bananas (279,530 tonnes in 2008), closely followed by Ivory Coast (216,583 tonnes), and the Dominican Republic (170,406 tonnes). These three countries have signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in the form of an interim (for African countries) or a comprehensive pact in the context of Cariforum, in the case of the Dominican Republic, which allows them to export their bananas to the EU free of obstacles.
