Update: 1:47PM SUGAR ministers of ACP countries have been asked to plead on Fiji's behalf to the European Commission to overturn its decision to suspend the $69.8million (EUR$24m) aid for the country's sugar reforms programme.
"A degree of flexibility" is what Fiji needs, the government delegation told the ministerial conference in Guyana today.
The Fiji delegation hoped the ACP ministers would back Fijis call for reconsideration at the ACP-EU Joint Council meeting in Brussels later this month.
The Fiji submission to the ACP sugar ministers said the country could only take full advantage of additional market access opportunities for sugar in the EU market, and meet its obligations to its EU buyer, if the reforms were carried out in time.
Fiji is a member of the ACP States, comprising 48 African, 16 Caribbean and 15 Pacific former European colonies, which are signatories of the Lome Convention with the European Commission on tariff preferences.
This preferential pricing arrangement is expected to end in September because the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had ruled that the preferential market and pricing regime violated free trade rules.
