Brussels, 04/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The industry ministers of the EU and ten Mediterranean rim countries are holding a two-day meeting in Caserta (Italy). Their meeting, the fifth of its kind, is expected to result in the adoption of a Euro-Mediterranean Business Charter inspired by the European Charter for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise but adapted to suit the Mediterranean context. Community sources say ministers will also adopt a working programme for industrial cooperation over the period 2005-2006. The main industrial cooperation themes include the future of the textile and clothing sector and the wish expressed last week during a meeting bringing together the trade ministers of the countries most concerned with professionals of the sector that there will be a joint riposte to the rise in Asian competition, especially Chinese competition (see EUROPE of 30 September, p.15). This competition, Pascal Lamy states, could toughen if access by Chinese products to the American market were to become more difficult, entailing the threat of redirecting these products to the Community market.
Furthermore, a conference on foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mediterranean countries will be held from 5 to 7 October in Rome in the context of the regional programme, ANIMA, financed by MEDA. Participants will evoke the results and the prospects of the programme managed by the European Commission (EuropeAid).