The European Commission and a group of Caribbean countries agreed on a wide-ranging new trade deal, only weeks before an end-of-year deadline.
Brussels has been pressing nearly 80 countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of former European colonies to back the new deals, called Economic Partnership Agreements, before December 31st.
The Caribbean agreement covered not only trade in goods but also services, rules on trade-related issues and development cooperation, the European Commission said in a statement.
The countries included Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
The rush for deals has come because a World Trade Organisation waiver - permitting the EU's long-standing preferential trade arrangements with the ACP countries - is due to expire on December 31st.
Without a deal, many of the ACP countries faced the prospect of immediately higher EU tariffs on their exports.
After years of negotiations, the EU has turned up the pace and in recent weeks has initialled deals with 16 countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean region plus Papua New Guinea and Fiji in the Pacific.
Most of those deals are limited to trade in goods, ahead of further talks on issues such as services next year.
Development campaign groups such as Oxfam have criticised the EPAs as unfair and damaging to poor countries because they will open up their economies to imports from the EU.
Brussels says ACP countries only have to cut their tariffs gradually and the new agreements will help foster regional economies, making them attractive to investment.