The ongoing negotiations on fisheries subsidies at the World Trade Organization (WTO) risk overriding one of the key benefits from a trade deal with the European Union, claims the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG). Speaking this week at the annual …The ongoing negotiations on fisheries subsidies at the World Trade Organization (WTO) risk overriding one of the key benefits from a trade deal with the European Union, claims the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).
Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) President, Diane Edwards, says more value-added products need to be exported to the European Union (EU) to reverse the decline in trade with the bloc. “We need to diversify away from commodities like banana and sugar into value- added products.
London has built a reputation as the preferred financial centre for African businesses, and the UK is looking to maintain that position despite Brexit. In recent years, investors seeking high returns have increasingly turned their attentions to Africa, with risk-tolerant investors attracted by high-yield cross-border rail, airport, power plant and even eurobond projects.
This month the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group are set to embark on negotiations to decide the framework for a new Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), expected to be in place in February 2020. As the process unfolds, it is useful to examine potential avenues for collaboration between the ACP Group and the EU, and also how potential hurdles and new competing partnerships could derail the agreement.
What is the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA)? Signed in June 2000, the CPA is a treaty between the European Union (EU) and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Its main objectives are poverty reduction, sustainable development and economic integration of ACP countries into the global economy through development cooperation, political cooperation and economic and trade cooperation.
The European Commission and African Union set up a joint rural Africa taskforce in May, after agricultural co-operation was one of the key topics as the EU-Africa summit in Abidjan in November 2017. The task force and its 11 experts were tasked with making recommendations in January 2019, with a mandate that focuses on promoting food security, transferring skills, climate change adaption and investment in agri-business.
Today the EU and 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) group will begin negotiations on the future of their cooperation after 2020. The ambition is to transform today's partnership into a modern political framework geared to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. The countries in the EU and the ACP represent more than half of all UN member countries and unite over 1.5 billion people.
Cameroon is kicking off the “pure origin” labelling process of the cocoa produced at post-harvest processing excellence centers in the country’s production areas. This will follow a meeting between the Confédération des chocolatiers et confiseurs de France, the Cameroonian cocoa and coffee inter-professional council, the trade minister and the French Ambassador to Cameroon on September 30 in Nkog-Ekogo, the Central region.