madam president for a long time the pacific has been a cinderella in the european union's overseas development initiatives
i am very pleased to recognise now that the initiatives taken by fiji and papua new guinea on creating an economic partnership agreement will not only help us to trade more liberally with them but will also enable them to trade intra-regionally with each other
one of the greatest things to have come out of this agreement so far is the fact that the rules of origin on fishing should finally enable the people in the pacific region to actually add value to their fishing
some of these pacific countries import fish when their seas are teeming with fish what has been achieved now is that they could actually process the fish that they catch and should be able to add value and export that fish to the eu
this is the way forward in development and this is the way forward in reducing poverty
