ECOWAS okays lean
deal with Europe
West Africa''s ECOWAS bloc says member ststes can do last-ditch deal with Europe to avoid disrupting
exports in 2008, but warned they should not sign broader economic accords ahead of a possible
regional deal. "We definitely do not object to these individual negotiations with the EU, while we continue to engage our European partners in order to resolve the thorny issues around the substntive EPA(Economic Partnership Agreements)," ECOWAS Commission President Mohamed Ibn Chambas told Reuters. Europe''s professionaltrade term for nearly 80 former African, Caribean and pacific colonies violate World
trade Organisation rules, and a waiver expires on Dec. 31. brussels had hope to sign far-reaching EPAs covering a range of areas from services trade, intellectual property and government procuurement standards, but has run out of time and is trying to reach interim
deals with countries whose exports wi attract after January 1. We are very much concerned and share in their view that there should be some interim arrangement put in place, otherwise the livehood of the people could be jeopardised," Chambas said in an interview late on wednesday. Both the regional EPAs and the intrim deals are expected to abolish tariffs immediately on most exports to Europe, and gradually phase out trade taxes on 80 percent of imported goods from Europe over periods up to 15 years. ECOWAS is looking on its members and mauritania in EPAs talk, which have commercial interests in lisbon last weekend brussel is proposing free trade agreements with six regional EPA groupings, four of them in Africa to cover wide range of trade and investment. opponents say the deals will affect the poor country in negative ways. However the biggest ECOWAS economy, Nigeria has shunned any deal, and its huge oil exports would be unaffected. Some ECOWAS countries such as Ivory Coast and Ghana are already signing but negotiations were held up by Ghana by differences between Ghananian and EU delegation which Ghana will sign only after the issue would be resolved. The negotiations on EPA should leave to ECOWAS and we should continue to repeat this point to ensure regional solidarity," Chambas said. (writing by Alistair Thompson; editing by Daniel Flynn and matthew Jones; summarised by YoungJ)
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