توقيع التجاره العالميه

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سيكون يوم الجمعه الاحتفال بتوقيع النهائي لدخول المملكه لمنظمة التجاره العالميه :vampire:

Saudi Arabia prepares for WTO membership
AFP

October 31, 2005

RIYADH -- Saudi Arabia is preparing to become the 149th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after a negotiating group gave the green light in principle to the oil giant's accession to the organization.

Assistant oil minister Prince Abdel Aziz Bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz, a member of the Saudi delegation that won the WTO working party's go-ahead in Geneva on Friday, called it "an important and final step on the road to Saudi accession.

"All that remains for a formal announcement is the [approval of the ruling] General Council during a meeting on November 11," he said on Sunday.

"Saudi Arabia will attend the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong on December 13 as a full-fledged member of the organization," Prince Abdel Aziz said.

The working party's approval all but brought to a close more than a decade of painstaking efforts by Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer and exporter, to join the WTO.

Nations in the 148-member WTO set global rules to ease trade among themselves.

A country wishing to join must first offer market opening concessions to its main trading partners, including cutting customs duties. The accords it reaches in bilateral talks are subsequently widened to all other WTO members.

The candidate must then make a commitment to ensure that its trade legislation complies with all WTO rules as the last step before actually becoming a member.

Prince Abdel Aziz, who is the son of Riyadh's governor, said that trade agreements signed with the United States and the European Union "played a major role" in paving the way for WTO membership.

He said that Saudi King Abdullah had "made personal contacts with the leaders of major powers" to ensure Saudi accession, and thanked in particular French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for backing Riyadh's drive to join the global trade body.

Conservative Saudi Arabia, which currently pumps around 9.6 million barrels of oil a day, has introduced economic reforms in recent years, which according to experts have smoothed the way for its imminent accession to the WTO.

Investment chief Amr Dabbagh said in an interview earlier this month that the kingdom has reduced the initial investment requirement for foreign investors to match that required of Saudi nationals and has cut foreign tax from 45 percent to 20 percent.

It has also reduced the sectors previously protected from foreign ownership, known as the "negative list".

"The negative list very soon will not exist," Dabbagh said, noting that the retail sector, telecom and insurance have already been removed from the list.

Dabbagh, who heads the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), said that recent economic and legislative reforms had already shown strong dividends.

Investment licenses in the second quarter of 2005 amounted to 24.4 billion Saudi riyals ($6.5 billion), compared with 2.8 billion riyals in the second quarter of 2004, he said.

"We expect the trend of growth that we have just witnessed and reported will continue," Dabbagh said, adding that the investment authority aimed to attract $1 trillion in direct foreign investment over the next 20 years.

But Saudi Arabia's upcoming entry into the WTO "poses a great challenge to the Saudi private sector, which must complete preparations to operate in a competitive environment", according to Saudi economist Ihsan Bu Hulaiga.

This applies "chiefly to the services sector, which stands to be most affected by the flow of foreign companies", he said.

Saudi Arabia first applied to join the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in 1993. Two years later that became an application to join the WTO.