Ecuadorian Vice-President Jorge Glas told EurActiv Spain that the trade agreement recently signed with the EU will generate plenty of opportunities and underpin the changes his country has been working toward in recent years.
On 11 November, Ecuador joined a trade deal that has been in place between the EU, Colombia and Peru since 2013. The agreement eliminates high tariffs, protects the bloc’s lucrative geographical indicators and a whole slew of other benefits. The EU was Ecuador’s largest trading partner in 2015.
“The agreement is a fair deal for both parties, generating opportunities and engaging with a development and industrialisation strategy that Ecuador has been working on for some time,” Glas said on 12 November in Brussels, after his country joined the EU’s existing deal.
“It is unlike some other trade agreements, where only the biggest benefit or where serious implications are generated for those further down the production chain,” the vice-president added.
“It has been a long process, we had to comprehensively solve some issues, like the banana regime, which had to be agreed by everyone, which delayed us a lot,” Glas explained. The deal will eliminate many import tariffs and European banana growers, particularly those operating in the Canary Islands, are concerned that their trade will be heavily affected by it.
“We care a lot, maybe that’s why it took us a bit longer,” suggested the Ecuadorian, who pointed out that a dollarized country like Ecuador “needs to evaluate every part of the production chain in order to reach an agreement that is beneficial for everyone”.
