Following the collapse of the World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva, banana-exporting countries in Africa, the European Union and the Dominican Republic have met in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, in order to establish a common stance for future multilateral trade negotiations.
The two-day meeting, being held on 25-26 August, is the first on African soil uniting banana producers from the European Union, Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific, all eager to defend their interests against dollar banana imports from Latin America.
In July, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group rejected the WTO-sponsored agreement between the EU and Latin American banana producers, which provides for a tariff cut from US$176 to US$114 per tonne by 2016.
Cameroon’s minister of commerce, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, commented: “The meeting in Yaoundé is especially important since it comes hot on the heels of the WTO’s mini-conference in Geneva, during which the interests of the ACP banana sector would have been in grave danger had it not been for the extreme vigilance and lucidity of a few.”
