The historic banana deal agreed at the end of 2009 by members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the European Union relating to import tariffs for Latin American exporting nations is set to be signed between the 26-28 May.
According to reports in Colombia, the signing of the deal will see tariffs drop from their current level of €176 per tonne to €153 per tonne until the end of this year, with a further cut to €148 per tonne on 1 January 2011.
Duties on bananas would then fall to €114 per tonne by 2016, while tariffs will also be slashed on other, smaller producers such as the Philippines and Thailand. In return, LatinAmerican banana producing nations are to drop challenges to the EU at the WTO.
A final agreement was agreed in principal by all parties in December, including the EU, Latin American nations and the US, ending one of the longest-running trade disputes ever brought to the WTO.
The dispute surrounded the perceived preferential treatment of African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP)banana exporters, many of whom enjoy tariff-free entry to the EU asformer colonies some European nations, over their Latin American counterparts.
Latin American countries had long-claimed that these regulations,which have seen their banana exporters pay €176 per tonne for entry to EUmarkets, were unfair – a claim backed by the WTO, which ruled against theEU in the matter of the tariffs' legality.
One of the sticking points to the deal had been the level of compensation the EU was offering ACP countries, who claimed that they would suffer from the loss of their preferential treatment, with a level of around €200m said to have been agreed.
