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EU seals Saudi trade deal, says pacts help Mideast
(Reuters), Khaleej Times
31 August 2003
JEDDAH - The European Union and Saudi Arabia signed a trade deal on Sunday aimed at easing the kingdom’s path to World Trade Organisation entry, and the EU said such deals helped stability in the whole Middle East. Saudi Arabian Trade Minister Hashem Yamani said his country hoped to enter the WTO early next year. “I think it is important for the region,” European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said as he signed the trade agreement with Yamani in this Saudi city.
Like other WTO hopefuls, Saudi Arabia has to seal bilateral agreements, usually with its most important trading partners, as well as adopt the whole body of WTO laws, before it can enter the trading organisation.
Saudi Arabia’s main trade partner is the EU. It also wants to agree a deal with the United States.
Lamy said such agreements were important as they helped to create a network of trade pacts and interests that were a force for stability in the turbulent Middle East, wrenched by war in Iraq and continued violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
US President George W. Bush has also spoken of creating a Middle Eastern free trade zone as a way to help the region.
Lamy said the deal with Saudi Arabia could help further talks on an overall trade agreement between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
The EU-Saudi deal means the average tariff level that Saudi Arabia will apply to industrial goods imported from the EU will be close to 12 percent. Similar pledges were made for agricultural goods.
Saudi Arabia also agreed to further open various service sectors, including telecommunications, construction, banking and insurance.
It also solved the issue of double-pricing energy, whereby domestic customers are charged preferential rates to export customers. Saudi Arabia has now abolished the double-pricing of gas and has put an end to the exclusion of foreign firms from the sector.
Yamani told Reuters that sealing the EU deal was an important milestone on Saudi Arabia’s route to the WTO.
“We would like to finish the major steps already by the end of 2003. Very early next year, we should be in. That is our target,” Minister Hashem Yamani told Reuters in an interview.
“Accession (to the WTO) is a way to really get more investors from outside so that our economy can get better.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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