By Helga Josupeit, FAO GLOBEFISH,
September 2006

With the temporary halt in WTO DOHA negotiations, bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTA) have gained importance recently. All main seafood importing countries are involved in these type of negotiations. This presentation will cover the status of various Free Trade Agreements or tariff concessions in the USA, EU, and Japan. The most important FTAs (of a plurilateral nature) are the one by the EU with the EFTA area (Norway, Switzerland and Iceland); Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and with Mediterranean countries (agreements with Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Israel, and Jordan are already in force). In recent years, the USA has forced the process of signing bilateral FTAs with many countries. Japan has just started recently, but negotiations are developing fast. Tariffs on shrimp have been reduced rencently, and are relatively unimportant, especially in the USA and Japan On the other hand, in the EU they are still high, and have not been reduced under the WTO.