WTO reasserts EU banana ruling

[NewsWhore]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has reasserted its position that the current banana trade regime in place between the European Union and Asian, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries is illegal and must be modified. A group of trade experts from the WTO was responding to a challenge from the United States. According to Hoy, the banana export regime frees the ACP nations from paying tariffs on up to 775,000 tons of bananas, giving them, according to the complaint filed by the US, an unfair advantage. The US itself is not a banana exporter, but the regime puts US-owned banana distributors in Latin America at a disadvantage. However, according to Hoy, most bananas imported by the EU come from non-ACP countries including Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, Venezuela, Mexico and Nicaragua, amounting to 68.2% of the EU's banana imports, while only 18.5% comes from ACP countries.

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