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Pacific Islands / Pacific Forum

Work intensifies in preparation for EPA negotiations
4-Feb-2011 Scoop
“On the international stage, ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations have reached a stalemate in all regions except for the Caribbean,” said the Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat
PACER-Plus: Why we need to get it right
13-Sep-2010 Islands Business
“PACER-Plus is the most important economic negotiation that Forum Islands nations will undertake this decade, so you need to get it right.” So says Dr Chris Noonan, Chief Trade Advisor to Forum Islands Countries for the PACER-Plus free trade negotiations.
Moratorium needed on Pacific trade talks, warn Pacific Civil Society Organisations
5-Aug-2010
Civil society groups from the Pacific including churches, trade unions, gender groups, indigenous rights groups and advocacy groups launched a statement calling for a moratorium on negotiations for a new Pacific-wide free trade agreement known as PACER-Plus.
Pacific Islands Trade: A year’s worth of bad outcomes
28-Jul-2010 PANG
Despite being launched only a year ago by Pacific leaders, the negotiations on the Pacific trade agreement known as PACER-Plus are slipping away from the Islands.
Nauru leads the charge on EPAs
28-Sep-2009
The stalled negotiations on the EU-inspired Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the Forum Island Countries finally resumed in Brussels.
Fiji will pull out from trade agreements
17-Aug-2009
Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama says Fiji will pull out of the Trade Agreement negotiations.
Australia continues to harbour concern over Pacific trade talks
4-Aug-2009 Radio Australia
Australia has been hoping that this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting will approve the formal start of negotiations on the proposed PACER-Plus regional free trade deal. But for months Canberra has been rejecting growing claims by regional opponents of a deal that its been unfairly pressuring Pacific nations to agree to the process.
Push for development, not FTA, at Pacific Islands Forum
3-Aug-2009 AIE
Global recession, climate change and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER Plus) are expected to dominate the Pacific Islands Forum, a four-day program scheduled to begin tomorrow in Cairns, Australia.
Australia’s getting the plus in PACER
8-Jul-2009 Islands Busines
Out of the nine resolutions made by trade ministers in the Pacific at their meeting in Samoa last month, seven were said to be concessions to their bigger neighbours of Australia and New Zealand.
Pacific Islands bullied by Australian, NZ trade officials, say experts
1-Jun-2009 Epoch Times
Tactics employed by Australia and New Zealand to push Pacific Island countries into signing a free trade agreement are a form of “contemporary colonization,” said academic and respected analyst on Pacific Island affairs, Professor Jane Kelsey at a seminar in Auckland last week.
Beyond fish and coconuts: trade agreements in the Pacific Islands
17-May-2009 Islands Business
Despite the existence of agreements among the Pacific island states, intra-regional trade has been low, mainly due to the massive distances and the lack of products to sell one another. In the words of an official of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat: “The islands are hardly going to sell a lot of coconuts and fish to each other.”
Pacific ACP leaders want EU to address "contentious issues" in EPA
12-May-2009 Solomon Times
In the Pacific region, only Papua New Guinea and Fiji initialled an Interim EPA mainly to protect their exports of fish and sugar, respectively, into the EU markets.
Arena accuses NZ Govt of ambushing Pacific on trade deal
6-May-2009
This weekend’s meeting of Pacific trade ministers in Auckland to progress the launch of PACER+ trade negotiations has all the hallmarks of an Australian and New Zealand ambush, the Arena network said today.
Pacific lessons from the Economic Partnership Agreement
1-Apr-2009
A trade deal between the world’s largest economic region, the European Union - and the world’s smallest - the Pacific - was never going to be easy.
Trade: Aust, NZ push trade agenda in region
10-Feb-2009 Islands Business
Governments in Australia and New Zealand are keen to assure Pacific nations that relations with the region are marked by ‘shared development goals’, but as Maureen Penjueli writes, the islands’ ‘big brothers’ have been pushing an agenda of their own—especially when it comes to negotiating a regional free trade agreement.
Pacific Governments want amendments to EPA
28-Nov-2008
Pacific governments have given early indications they will not sign the current Economic Partnership Agreement with European Union without amendments.
European Parliamentarian says Pacific EPAs must be changed
28-Nov-2008
Concerns have been raised that the European Commission should allow Pacific countries to use export taxes for development purposes and that Economic Partnership Agreements should include adequate protection for infant industries.
EU reassures Pacific on economic agreements
28-Oct-2008
The European Union has publicly assured Pacific island nations they are not at a disadvantage if they do not sign Economic Partnership Agreements.
OXFAM unconvinced by EU stand on EPAs
28-Oct-2008
New Zealand aid agency Oxfam is unconvinced by the European Union’s claims that forming Economic Partnership Agreements, or EPAs, will be in the best interests of the Pacific nations who choose to sign up.
Pacific ACP States committed to continue negotiating EPA with EU as single region
25-Oct-2008
The Pacific ACP States have reaffirmed their commitment to continue the negotiations of an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union “as a single region” based on existing negotiating positions as agreed last March.