Dominica PM warns of renewed challenges facing banana industry
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| Published on Friday, May 11, 2007 |
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ROSEAU, Dominica: Dominica’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit has sounded a warning of the renewed challenges facing the banana industry in the Windward Islands and the ACP grouping as a whole.
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Prime Minister of Dominica,
Roosevelt Skerrit.
AFP PHOTO |
The Prime Minister was at the time addressing the 5th Annual General Meeting of the Dominica National Fair Trade Organisation in Castle Bruce last week.
The Prime Minister highlighted Ecuador’s success in securing a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel investigation into the European Union’s banana tariffs. Ecuador’s complaint is that the duty on their banana exports of US$234 per tonne penalizes them unfairly compared with farmers in Africa and the Caribbean who can sell up to 775,000 tonnes of bananas to the European Union duty free.
In light of this latest attack on ACP bananas by Ecuador, the world’s biggest banana producer, the Prime Minister said, "This amounts to yet another attack by Ecuador on our banana Industry and by extension our hard working farmers. We do not know how the WTO will rule on this latest complaint, nevertheless whatever the outcome, it behooves us to be watchful and vigilant.”
The Prime Minister also spoke of renewed efforts by the US-backed Multinationals, Chiquita, Dole and Del Monté to start producing bananas in Africa.
“These firms are currently establishing large-scale cost effective production in West Africa so that they can benefit from duty-free access to the European market,” the Dominican leader said.
Skerrit also warned of the ultimate intentions of the US multinationals: “With the pending elimination of tariffs and quotas, it is clear their intention is to flood the market with cheap bananas from Africa and thus bring about a drop in prices, so that pressure is put on our bananas since it is well known that we are high cost producers because of our terrain and small production systems.” | | | | Reads : 36 |
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