Illegal trade in rosewood has boomed in recent years in Central America, West and Central Africa and South East Asia in response to a growing demand from Asia.

4. The report shall set out a summary of the statistics and the evolution of trade with Central American countries and shall include up-to-date statistics on banana imports from Central American countries.

The EU Party, having examined the relevant legislation of each of the Republics of CA Party considers that this legislation, by providing protection periods of at least five years for pharmaceutical products and ten years for agricultural chemical products, affords a satisfactory level of protection that corresponds to the relevant international obligations entered to by the Republics of the CA Party including Article 39 of the WTO TRIPS Agreement, Article 15.10 of The Dominican Republic - Central America - United States Free Trade Agreement and for Panama Article 15.10 of the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement.

Recognises that the conclusion of the WTO agreements on trade in bananas put an end to a long-term dispute with Latin American and ACP partner countries’ banana suppliers, could facilitate progress in the Doha Round negotiations and has contributed to concluding the negotiations on the various agreements with Central America and Colombia and Peru; calls, nonetheless, for account to be taken of the commitments made to ACP partners and the interests of EU producers; calls, in order to avoid further disputes, for fair treatment to be guaranteed to all trade partners in Latin America, including those who have not concluded a trade agreemen ...[+++]t with the EU;

At sub-regional level EU cooperation has focused on providing support for regional integration. This includes a project for "Harmonisation of Technical Standards, Technical Regulations and Conformity Assessment Procedures", aimed at facilitating the free circulation of goods between Mercosur member countries, and between Mercosur and the European Union; a trade- related technical assistance programme to support the process of the creation the Common Andean Market; and a programme supporting the Central American integration whose specific objective is to increase the capacity of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and of civi ...[+++]l society to strengthen and deepen the process of integration and co-operation.

These included a proposal for an EU-Latin America/Caribbean discussion forum for the promotion and protection of human rights, based on the good experience gained in Central America where a committee of independent experts was set up under the San José Dialogue to discuss human rights.