Abu-Ghazaleh Stresses the Need for an Agreement to Open E-Trade Markets

At the first meeting of the WTO panel



During the meeting, discussions focused on the various significant aspects for the Arab countries and Abu-Ghazaleh presented the paper he will demonstrate at the meeting of the WTO panel through which he addressed issues that need to be tackled to encounter 21 Century’s trade challenges



GENEVA --- May 20, 2012 --- The panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) stakeholders responsible for examining and analyzing challenges to global trade opening in the 21st Century, held its first meeting chaired by WTO Director-General Mr. Pascal Lamy with the presence of the panel’s 12 experts.



The panel was formed on April 13, 2012 based on the demand of Lamy suggested that the profound transformations in the world economy require the WTO and the multilateral trading system to look at the drivers of today and tomorrow's trade, to look at trade patterns and at what it means to open global trade in the XXI century, bearing in mind the role of trade in contributing to sustainable development, growth, jobs and poverty alleviation. The analysis of these world trade drivers, which will be produced by the 12 panelists in early 2013, can make an important contribution to debate between Members on the best way to tackle these challenges, Mr. Lamy said.



Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAG-Org), a member of the panel met a day earlier at a headquarters of the League of Arab States in Geneva with Arab ambassadors and delegates at the WTO in an advisory meeting based on an invitation by Permanent Representative at Qatar Mission to the UN HE Sheikha Alya bint Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani with a recommendation from Ambassador Abdul-Aziz Al-Otaibi, permanent ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the WTO.



During the meeting, discussions focused on the various significant aspects for the Arab countries and Abu-Ghazaleh presented the paper he will demonstrate at the meeting of the WTO panel through which he addressed issues that need to be tackled to encounter 21 Century’s trade challenges and  to draw the future of the global trade in an attempt to realize sustainable development and create job opportunities to alleviate poverty.



The panel set out its agenda to present its report at the beginning of 2013 to become a research paper presented to ministers of the WTO member countries.



The program included suggestions proposed by Abu-Ghazaleh mainly:



• The need to negotiate a multi-lateral agreement on e-commerce within the knowledge revolution era

• Resumption of the Doha Round trade negotiations

• Taking the private sector’s point of view as it’s the one concerned with the negotiations without having the right to participate in negotiations nor in decision making.

• Reconsideration of the one commitment principle 

• Reconsideration of the consensus principle in making decisions

• Coordination with international development institutions in an institutional mechanism to achieve the trade’s goal of sustainable and comprehensive development

• Giving priority to trade services particularly via the Internet.

• Challenges of the new trade pattern (made in the world) as a result of the passage of the production and trade in a number of countries before the product reaches consumers

• The need for new criteria to classify countries instead of “developed” and “developing” based on new standards that conform with the knowledge society.

• Issues of concern for the Arab countries in particular