Washington announces the beginning of trade negotiations with UAE, Oman
Gulf-USA, Economics, 2/18/2005

The USA starts trade negotiations over a draft agreement for free trade exchange with the United Arab Emirates UAE and Oman in March.

The assistant for the American trade representative Cathy Novelle said on Thursday that negotiations with the United Arab Emirates will start on March 8 and with Oman on March 12 but without defining a set time to reach an agreement.

She explained to journalists in Washington that the talks will take enough time to complete the agreement noting that the agreement with Morocco lasted for one year while it took only five months to finalize a similar agreement with Bahrain.

She also indicated that the objective of the negotiations is to materialize the vision of the US President George W. Bush on founding a vast area of US- Middle East free exchange.

The UAE is number 49 among the US trade partners. Trade exchange between the two sides reached $ 4.6 billion in 2003 and by that it ranks after the American exchange with each of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The American exports to UAE reached $ 3.5 billion including equipments, planes, vehicles, medical equipments for UAE exports of $ 1.1 billion for oil and garments.

Oman comes 77 within trade exchange with the USA, which reached $ one billion in 2003, according to statistics of the office of the American trade representative.

The US previously had finalized free trade agreements in the Middle East with Israel, Jordan, Bahrain and Morocco.

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