Ecuador: minimum banana price still applies

Tholen - According to the president of the cantonal agriculture centre in Machala, Paúl González, it is not true that the constitutional tribunal (TC) would have spoken out in favour of a cancellation of the articles 1, 2, 4 and 7 of the banana law, because of which the minimum reference price for bananas could no longer be maintained. González paid a visit to Santiago Velázquez Coello, the president of the TC in Quito, after local publication of an article with this content in El Universo - amongst others. According to González, Velázquez reported that nothing of the published material was sure.

González even stated that Velázquez had written a communication to the newspaper concerned, with a request for rectification of the information, because the TC had not decided anything definite yet. Whatever the case, González fears that because the articles may ultimately be dubbed unconstitutional, that exporters will already start paying less then the minimum price. González therefore underlined that the law still applies as long as there has not been a definite decision by the TC and that exporters should still keep to the law.

What strikes even more surprise is that the Minister of Agriculture still has not called the council for banana cultivation to decide the new official banana reference price, according to González.

Publication date: March 29 2007
Author: André van der Wiel
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