Ecuador’s Foreign Trade Minister, Diego Aulestia, has predicted that the country will sign a multilateral commercial treaty with the European Union in the last quarter of 2016.
According to Spanish.PeopleDaily.com, he expects the agreement to be active by the end of the year, as the state is likely to sign before December 31, when the Generalised System of Preferences, which allows the entry of European products with a preferential tariff, ends.
Ecuador's exports to the European Union include bananas, shrimp, tuna, flowers, cocoa, coffee and tea, according to the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexport).
The EU is Ecuador's main market for non-oil related exports, and a big share of the business goes to small and medium companies.
The treaty, however, is not a Free Trade Agreement, to which Ecuadorian government is opposed.
Diego Aulestia indicated that a previous agreement was signed in Brussels in December 2014, which created the foundation for the one expected to occur in the upcoming months.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Gabriela Guedez. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
