Bangkok--Jun 17--UNISBKK
In the context of the Meeting of Executive Secretaries (ES) of the five UN regional commissions that will be hosted by UN-ESCWA at the UN House, Beirut, on 7 and 8 July 2005, a roundtable will be held on "Regional
Integration, Bilateralism, and Multilateralism: Harmony or Conflict?" that includes key speeches by UN-ESCWA ES Mervat Tallawy and Lebanese Finance, Economy and Trade Minister Dimyanos Kattar.
The Executive Secretaries expressed their satisfaction with the outcome of a roundtable on "Bilateralism and Regionalism in the Aftermath of Cancun:
Re-establishing the Primacy of Multilateralism" they held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, last June. The roundtable was well-attended, and raised important
issues that need to be further explored by the regional commissions. The
ES's agreed with the proposal of Mr. Rubens Ricupero, former
Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), for the commissions to hold another roundtable in the near future
that would possibly involve the participation of a wider group of
stakeholders such as representatives from other UN agencies, bilateral and
regional integration groupings as well as experts from some developed and developing member States. A date was then fixed for the ES Meeting in Beirut.
This roundtable aims to discuss the future of regional integration in light of the various bilateral and multilateral agreements that are being
undertaken between developing countries and the developed economies. In an era of globalization and the formation of regional blocks it has become inevitable that Arab countries seek economic integration among themselves in order to face the contemporary economic problems that are confronting them, from the vast openness of the global economy, to the accompanying competitiveness of goods imported from industrialized countries with those from developing countries, including Arab countries. The Arab world, which covers an area of 5.3 million square miles and is inhabited by 302 million people, the equivalent of 10.2% of the area of the planet and 4.8% of its population, has amassed a GDP of around $718 billion in 2003, the equivalent of only 2% of the world's GDP in the same year and around only 3.5% of the world's total trade. The picture is not that different at the regional level, as Arab intraregional trade in 2003 did not surpass 7.8% of the total foreign trade of the Arab world, noting that the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) was fully implemented in 2005 exempting all goods of Arab origin from tariffs, import taxes and other charges. In spite of
the full elimination of tariff barriers, there remain several non-tariff barriers to trade that hinder the full liberalization of Arab intraregional
trade in GAFTA and achievement of economic integration, such as:
uncompleted rules of origin; non-transparent procedures of tariff
administration; immature dispute settlement mechanisms; and high transport
charges.
It is worth nothing that the Executive Secretaries Meeting comes on the eve of a world summit due to be held at UN headquarters in New York in
September. Participating in the ES Meeting are: Ms. Brigita Schmognerova, ES of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE); Mr. Kim Hak-Su, ES of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Mr. Jose Luis Machinea, ES of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Mr. K.Y. Amoako, ES of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA); and Ms. Mervat Tallawy, ES of UN-ESCWA. The meeting will also be attended by world-renowned figures, senior UN officials, and a host of political, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, cultural and media personalities. End.