ESA Group Assures Derogation for 10,000 M/t Of Tunaff

Peter Mandelson, the European Commerce Commissioner is scheduled to address the Mauritian press on Monday afternoon by videoconference to dwell on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union (EU) and the perspectives of such negotiations in 2008, APA learns here.

The conference will be held at the local office of the European Commission (EC) in Floreal, 25 km from the capital, Port Louis.

At the same time, Claudia Wiedey, the Chief of Mission of the EC office in Mauritius will make a presentation on the partnership between the EU and Mauritius and he will also inaugurate an « Info Point Â» aimed at propagating more the aims of the EU to the public.

To date, only the Cariforum organization which regroups Caribbean countries of the ACP have signed a full EPA agreement with the EU. The ACP African countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) group, in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and in West Africa have only signed an Interim Agreement (IA) dealing essentially with trade.

The IA will allow them to normally trade with the EU until the 31st December 2008 when the derogation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning preferential trade facilities will come to an end.

Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Zambia, which form part of the ESA group have managed to secure an automatic derogation for 2008 for 8000 tons of canned tuna and 2000 tons of tuna loins to be exported to the EU. The quota will be shared among the different countries.