29 March - 4 April 2001
Issue No.527
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 29 March - 4 April 2001 Issue No.527 |
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A sure thing
An Egyptian proposal for the convocation of the first Arab economic conference was adopted at this week's Arab summit in Amman, setting Arab leaders on the track to realising the dream of unfettered inter-Arab trade and, hence, strong inter-Arab relations. This conference, to be hosted by the Egyptian government in Cairo in November, will bring together representatives of governmental and private sectors from all Arab countries and will also be sponsored by the Arab League.
With the exception of Israel, the conference will be open to businessmen and economists from the around the world in the hopes of boosting the level of Arab trade and economic cooperation and attracting more direct foreign investment to the Arab world. In his speech before the opening session of the summit, President Hosni Mubarak underlined "the pressing need to address the economic aspects of Arab relations" amid fast-paced developments in the world economy. Mubarak suggested that the proposed conference will help to realise Arab economic integration.
"This is a big event that we are really looking forward to," commented Omani Foreign Minister Youssef Bin Alawi, who echoed the widely accepted belief that strong economic relations are the key to stable and prosperous Arab relations. "We believe that the economic conference in Cairo will be the launching pad for Arab economic cooperation," Bin Alawi said. "I think that if we work hard, staring now, on the economic aspects of [Arab] relations, we can have an Arab common market in 10 years time."
"Economic cooperation establishes what we have agreed to call 'common interests', and it is when you have serious common interests that you work very hard to overcome political disagreements," commented Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. Moussa, who will take over as secretary-general of the Arab League on 16 May, pledged that he will make sure that the league works to enhance economic cooperation in accordance with the economic resolutions adopted at the summit.
In addition to its resolution on the economic conference, two other economic resolutions presented by Egypt and Jordan were adopted in Amman. The resolutions call on Arab League member-states to work towards establishing a total Arab Free Trade area and call on countries to reduce the stumbling blocks that hamper inter-Arab trade. Cooperation among Arab states in the fields of electricity, gas, transport, tourism, and IT was also advocated by the Amman summit.
Negotiating the economic resolutions was not easy, noted one summit participant, who said that rich Arab countries were eager to promote their own agendas, while poorer Arab countries were too concerned that their economic problems could worsen if the resolutions are arranged to suit the rich Gulf states. However, it was at the Amman summit that economic cooperation was first seriously discussed in the past 20 years. Now that the resolutions are there, it remains to be seen how closely they will be implemented by the countries that agreed on them.
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