Commerce and Industry Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah yesterday inaugurated a symposium on the application of trade agreements in the area of services which is being organized in cooperation with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The three-day symposium will explore a series of topics including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Kingdom’s position within GATT, and how to deal with individual businesses in the framework of GATT agreement.
Addressing the symposium, the Minister said the Kingdom is fully prepared to fulfill its commitments to the WTO and its member states emanating from its conviction on the necessity of joint operations and its desire to maximize gains from joining the WTO so as to achieve more development and boost the strength of Saudi economy.
He said the trade agreement on services is considered one of key WTO agreements as the services sector plays a pivotal role in the economic development and its direct contribution to production and balance of payments worldwide. The Minister said the Kingdom is among few countries that had fulfilled commitments in several service sub-sectors. It made commitments to 120 service sub-sectors from the total 160 sub-sectors based on product classification prepared by the UN and approved by the Convention of Trade on Services.
This rests on the Kingdom’s present and future outlook on the importance of trade liberalization in services which acts as main driver for intra-trade relations between world countries, he said.
He stressed the importance of interaction and cooperation between governmental and private sector firms toward the efforts undertaken by the Ministry in explaining trade agreements and the WTO conventions and systems. He added: “We are living in a closely linked world and these agreements and systems have affected our local trade environment which requires closer cooperation and more interaction that could serve our economy and realize our developmental aspirations.”
Source: Arab News, September 18, 2012.