The European Union's (EU) decision to remove all remaining quota and tariff limitations on access to its market for all African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states was welcomed by the region's chief trade negotiator. But bananas were left out of the agreement, which is a cause for concern.

Caribbean regional negotiating machinery director general, Dr Richard Bernal, said the decision to give the region the same access as least developed countries under the “Anything But Arms” initiative is a step in the right direction and a "friendly gesture" from the Europeans.

The EU offer covers all fruit and vegetables, but Bernal told the Caribbean Media Corporation he was concerned that there was no mention of bananas.

"There are two exceptions, which are rice and sugar, and there will be transition arrangements for those. So on the whole it is good news for the region.

"The concern which the region has is that bananas is not mentioned, and the duty-free quota free treatment for bananas would not be good for the region.

"So it is good news on the whole, but we are concerned about how bananas will be treated, and that is not mentioned, and it means that is something that we have to work out with the European and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) process," he said.

Bernal said regional negotiators now had to work out how to liberalise imports from the EU, and what would be the implications of that liberalisation on regional economies, especially on fiscal revenue.

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