EU Trade Chief Mandelson favours quota free access for textile products from China
23 May '05
3 min read
Speaking at a session on “Harnessing Global Trade for the Middle East,” he also “Services are an area of tremendous potential for you,” he told the audience, which included a large number of Arab participants, and his two fellow panellists – Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Economy and Planning of the United Arab Emirates and Rachid M. Rachid, Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry of Egypt. “With liberalization, your current trade in services could be two or three times more.”
Mandelson said his aim is to hold negotiations with the non-European countries in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which links the 25 EU countries to eight Arab countries, the Palestinian Authority and Israel in the “Barcelona Process” launched in the Spanish city in 1995. “I believe in the Barcelona Process, and in the EU looking southwards to its neighbours in the Mediterranean and Gulf regions. I believe we have a great future together and I want to make this happen,” he said. “This is one of my priorities.”
Sheikha Qasimi agreed that development of the services trade can open up new vistas for Arab countries in the region, offering possibilities for diversifying their economies and reducing dependence on oil. “Not many of us are placed to develop manufacturing, so definitely services is the area of opportunity,” she told the participants.
Rachid told the session that, if they are to integrate much more actively into the global economy, it is vital for Ara, it is vital for Arab countries in the Mediterranean region to change the old protectionist mindset and develop trade between themselves. “We have been talking about an Arab market for years, but we don't have it yet because we have been talking about it with our emotions and not with logic.... The way to the global economy passes through effective regional agreements,” he said.
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