Brussels, 23/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - European Commissioner for trade Pascal Lamy began discussions on Thursday with the Saudi trade minister, with whom he discussed WTO accession and continued negotiations with Gulf countries for the conclusion of an agreement of reciprocal free trade.
The European Commission and the Wahhbi kingdom have already finished their bilateral negotiations on WTO accession negotiations following intense discussions. Pascal Lamy at that point, declared that he was satisfied with the decision taken by such an important trade partner and importer as Saudi Arabia (the EU is its number one trade partner) to "comply with the totality of WTO rules on accession and get rid of certain barriers to international trade, such as bans on certain food products and the double price system for gas products". The Euro-Saudi agreement, opens the way to an extent for accession to the WTO and was signed on 1 September in Riyadh. It applies to both goods and services. Brussels highlighted that the average level of duty that Saudi Arabia is committed to applying on industrial products will be around 12% and similar commitments were made for agricultural products. In the area of services, Saudi Arabia is proposing via this agreement, commitments in a substantial number of sectors such as telecommunications, post, construction, distribution, environment, banking, insurance, press agencies, transport and the temporary circulation of professionals. Commitments were made on cross-border supplies and trading presence. Due to these commitments, European service providers will benefit from better access to the Saudi market as well as better planned environment for their activities. The bilateral agreement also allowed the problem posed by the double price system to be resolved which existed in the energy sector: Saudi Arabia has now abolished this system applied to gas and has ended the exclusion of foreign companies in the national energy sector. But WTO accession will not take place until Riyadh has finalised its particular negotiations with four other members of the trade organisation, including, of course, the USA. The Saudi minister informed Commissioner Lamy of the "significant progress" achieved over recent months. Subjects still pending also concern standards. Saudi Arabia for the first time in 1993 put forward its candidacy to GATT, which was transformed into a request for WTO accession in 1995.
In the EU-GCC negotiations, Mr Lamy set himself the task of "passing on the message", according to his spokesperson, that the European Commission was "ready to go fast and speed up" the pace of negotiations in the shape of technical negotiations, such as that held in mid-January in a Gulf country which allowed each of the parties to put forward their tenders in services. Subjects still to be discussed focus on cooperation in services and the issue of public procurement, which the Europeans are prioritising, while the gulf states are highlighting the issue of custom tariffs on aluminium and petro-chemical products.