Deal seen Friday in WTO bananas war-diplomats
BRUSSELS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The European Union is set to initial a deal on Friday with Latin American countries, African Caribbean and Pacific states and the United states to cut tariffs on banana imports, ending the world's longest-running trade dispute, diplomats involved in the negotiations said.
"Everybody is on board. The last obstacles have been cleared and closure is expected in the next 24 hours allowing for an initialling of the deal on Friday," a diplomat told Reuters.
The essential element was that the tariff on bananas would fall to $114 a tonne by 2016 from $176, with an initial cut to $148.
Poorer ACP growers in mostly former European colonies will get around 200 billion euros in compensation as part of the deal, diplomats said.
Although the United States does not export bananas, it is a party to the deal because several big distributors and processors such as Chiquita (CQB.N), Dole (DOLE.N) and Del Monte (DLM.N) are U.S. corporations. Another big distributor is the Irish company Fyffes (FFY.I). (Reporting by Darren Ennis; Editing by David Gregorio) ((brussels.newsroom"thomsonreuters.com; +32 2 2876830))
