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In 1975, when the first Lome Convention between the European Community (E.C.) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states was signed, ACP exports accounted for 3.4 percent of total E.C. imports.(2) However, they failed to keep pace with the growth in E.C. trade, declining to 3.2 percent of E.C. imports by 1985 and to only 1.5 percent of E.C. imports by 1992.(3) Average E.C. import growth between 1985 and 1991 amounted to more than 12 percent per annum, while ACP exports to the European Community expanded less than 7 percent per annum over the same period. The Lome Convention, therefore, did not provide the essential supporting infrastructure to enable the ACP states to maintain their market share. Could they ever have done so? Was it realistic to expect that the Lome Convention alone could deliver ACP export success? What should the ACP do to achieve this goal? To what extent is it possible to reform the trade provisions of the Lome Convention to provide more substantial trade development support for the ACP economies?
This article examines the record of ACP exports to the European Community and explores the wide range of problems associated with ACP trade performance in the E.C. marketplace. It is divided into five main sections: The first assesses the record of ACP exports to the European Community from 1976 to 1992; the second section comments on the preferential position of the ACP states in E.C. markets, incorporating a brief investigation of the implications of the Single European Market program; the third section reviews the problems of ACP trade development, including the apparent marginalization of ACP trade in the E.C. market; the fourth section briefly probes E.C. trade policy and the likely implications of the 1993 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) for the ACP states; and the fifth section considers the future prospects for ACP-E.C. trade and suggests possible innovations for future Lome Conventions.
THE ACP EXPORT RECORD
The fourth Lome Convention (Lome IV), which entered into force in 1991, commits the European Community and the ACP states to promoting and diversifying ACP exports. It perpetuates the close, contractual relationship originally established in 1975 as a successor to the older post-colonial arrangements that had existed between various E.C. member states...