Brussels, 07/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is to present its proposal on new levels of customs duty applicable to banana imports at the end of this week (rather than 6 September, as mistakenly indicated in EUROPE 9017). Further to the arbitration panel of the WTO at the beginning of August (which was requested by Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela), which found that the customs duty of 230 EUR per tonne initially proposed was too high to allow banana suppliers from Latin America to maintain their share of the Community market, the Commission is to propose new levels of duty which, according to various sources, are likely to be between 195 and 199 EUR/tonne. Furthermore, it is to maintain preferential access in favour of the ACP countries, whilst accepting the potential need to review the volume of 750,000 tonnes provided for imports which may enter the EU with a zero rate of duty. The Latin American countries recommend customs duty equivalent to that currently in place (75 EUR/tonnes up to a quota of 2.2 million tonnes), whereas the ACP countries are calling for a minimum of 230 EUR/tonne. At the WTO, the EU has undertaken to replace the import quota regime with a purely tariff-based regime, by 1 January 2006.