Hylton hopes Clinton will resolve problem
ANTHONY HYLTON, Minister of Foreign Trade, yesterday described as a "worst-case scenario", the European Union's (EU) recently announced "first come, first served" method of distributing banana-importing licences.
Mr. Hylton said he was hopeful the matter would be resolved in the coming weeks, before the Bill Clinton Administration left office.
The move by the EU to discontinue preferential treatment for bananas from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, is largely aimed at ending a long-running trade row with the United States, which has placed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a referee's role. The stand-off has resulted in American sanctions of US$191 million a year.
The new regime follows a WTO ruling last year that the EU system unfairly favoured growers in EU territories and the Caribbean over Latin American producers whose bananas are marketed by US multi-nationals Chiquita Brands International INC., and Dole Foods Co.
Dr. Marshall Hall, group managing director of the Jamaica Producers Group, is supporting the minister's position. "We are not happy. I would agree with him (the Minister)," he told The Gleaner yesterday. He expressed concern that very little seems to be known about the EU's latest proposal, and said further comments would have to await the reading of the fine prints.
The new system announced by EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler on Tuesday, will switch to a tariff-only approach in 2006.
But, despite claims that the proposal was the best available solution to a long-standing problem, CARICOM countries are concerned that irreparable damage could be done to their fragile banana industries, if the preferential treatment they now enjoy with the EU is taken away.
"We have said consistently that that particular approach of quota allocation would greatly disadvantage CARICOM countries," Mr. Hylton said yesterday. The Minister who was speaking at a press briefing at his Ministry, Dominica Drive, New Kingston, noted that countries with larger shipping fleets and greater volumes of bananas would be placed at a distinct advantage by virtue of the EU's proposal.
Dr. Hall suggested that the EU might have taken this approach because it was "desperately trying to introduce something that was WTO-consistent". He said ACP countries were hoping for a modification of the proposal to guarantee continued entry of their bananas into the EU, or a change of the system.
Despite the potential death-blow to the region's banana industry, Mr. Hylton remains optimistic. "I have reason to believe that this may not be the last word on the matter," he said, while pointing to a news release from the US Trade Representative which indicates that the US was itself opposed to the EU's approach. So too, were most of the Latin American countries.
