According to a statement by the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Spain has now amended its bio-diesel legislation. This following a formal complaint by Argentina at the World Trade Organization last August, says the release.
“To avoid an eventual sanction by the WTO, the King of Spain has enacted a new ministerial order (…) which, among other changes, eliminates the ban on bio-diesel imports from outside the European Union”, the official document reads.
Argentina is the world’s biggest exporter of bio-diesel. In 2011, Argentina’s bio-diesel sales to Spain accounted for 20 to 30% of its total exports to the European country. That means a 1.1 billion dollar loss in earnings if Madrid persisted in “protectionist” and “discriminatory” rules.
But Buenos Aires has also been challenged for “protectionism” at the WTO by the European Union, the US and Japan, increasing trade barriers to protect Latin America’s N° 3 economy in a context of global crisis.(mercopress)