|
Jamaican News
Home > News &
Events
PM Takes Banana Lobby To Finland
News Item From The Jamaica Gleaner
PRIME MINISTER P.J. Patterson on Wednesday
presented a strong case for the preservation of the Caribbean banana industry during a
meeting with the President of Finland, Mariti Ahtesaari.
Mr. Patterson said the Caribbean was committed to ensuring that the EU/ACP banana regime
was compatible with World Trade Organisation rules. He called for a reconfirmation of a
commitment of European Heads to work with the Caribbean and the rest of the ACP for a
negotiated settlement acceptable to all sides.
The Prime Minister noted that Caribbean states were making additional efforts to diversify
their economies, many having previously diversified out of sugar into bananas. Many, he
said, were now making in-roads into tourism but could find themselves in danger from an
exclusive reliance on tourism or precipitous diversification.
Mr. Patterson stressed the importance of banana production to the social and economic
fabric of Caribbean societies, pointing out that many of the small island states were
almost entirely dependent on the crop. Caribbean bananas, he said, were grown by small
independent farmers, many of them women and heads of households.
The meeting, held in Helsinki, Finland, was critical in view of that country assuming the
presidency of the European Union as of July 1, said a release from the Office of the Prime
Minister. Mr. Patterson is chairman of CARICOM's Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on
External Negotiations.
The Finnish President was receptive to the Caribbean's position and expressed a
willingness to work with the region to achieve an acceptable settlement.
The Caribbean delegation led by Mr. Patterson, included Head of the Regional Negotiating
Machinery, Sir Shridath Ramphal; Deputy Secretary General of CARICOM, Byron Blake;
Ambassador Maxine Roberts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in Jamaica;
and Charge d'Affairs at the Jamaican High Commission to London, Owen Singh.
- Back -
For more
comprehensive local news coverage, please visit the following Jamaican news & media
websites:
|
