The Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Trade, Diego Aulestia, said he expected Ecuador would sign the multiparty trade agreement with the European Union (EU), which includes Colombia and Peru since 2012, in the last quarter of the year.
"We hope that we'll have it signed by the last quarter of the year so that it can enter into force soon," Aulestia said in an interview with Xinhua.
He added that the agreement should be provisionally in force before December 31, as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Program, which allows Ecuador to ship products to the European bloc with zero tariffs, comes to an end.
The Ecuadorian minister noted that in December 2014 Ecuador and the EU had sealed a trade agreement in Brussels, Belgium, after which there had been a long and laborious process for the final signing of the understanding.
Some of the remaining procedures include the revision of the agreement by the College of Commissioners and the EU Council, as well as the subsequent final ratification of the document in the bloc's parliament.
Ecuador's National Assembly and Constitutional Court must also ratify the document.
The Minister stated that the EU was the main destination for Ecuadorian non-oil exports, many of which were performed by small and medium enterprises.
The agreement with the EU is not a free trade agreement (FTA), which is opposed by the government, but an agreement with specific characteristics, he said.
According to the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexport), Ecuador exports banana, shrimp, tuna, flowers, cocoa, coffee and tea, to the European market.
