Everything But Arms - EU Trade Development Assistance Scheme

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The following is an advisory by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated, Houston, Texas). Mozambique has become the first country to take advantage of the new Everything but Arms' initiative launched by the European Union earlier this year. In terms of the new regulations, certain goods originating from developing countries may enter the EU duty-free. The first exports of sugar under the scheme have arrived in Lisbon, bringing scarce foreign exchange and revenue to the reviving sugar industry.

The past sugar season was the first time that Mozambique had produced a crop large enough to have an exportable surplus after meeting domestic demand. The depredations of decades of civil war followed by two years of devastating storms and floods have dogged the country's efforts to get up from its knees.

The reconstruction and rehabilitation of the sugar industry has caused the placing of strict import controls on the commodity. Mozambique will receive an annual allocation of the EBA quota. The scheme began in Georgetown, Guyana in May 2001, when Mozambique initiated the first meeting of the developing nations to ensure efficient negotiating interaction with European refiners.