Latin America And Africa Pull In Different Directions In Banana Tariff Dispute

by Robert Lee, for LawAndTax-News.com, London

04 May 2005

The dispute over the European Union's plans to change its banana tariffs from next year is rumbling on, with Latin American banana producers at loggerheads with their counterparts in Africa and the Caribbean, it emerged this week.

Under the proposed new regime, set to come into force in January 2006, Latin American banana exporters would no longer be limited by quotas, but would be obliged to pay a duty of EUR230 per tonne (up from the current level of EUR75 per tonne).

Nine Latin American countries (headed by Ecuador) have approached the World Trade Organisation asking it to arbitrate on the matter, and are reportedly seeking to maintain the current tariff levels.

However, banana producers in the ACP countries have countered with a request for tariff-free access for themselves and a EUR275 per tonne level for all other banana producing countries, arguing that when the quotas are removed next year, Latin America is likely to flood the market.

"If the tariff is too low, we will be kicked out of the market," Ebanda Alima Anatole of the Association of Banana Producers of Cameroon told the EU Observer news service this week.

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