Economic steps towards integration at Gulf summit in Kuwait
Gulf Region, Economics, 10/20/1997

In preparation for the annual Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries summit which will be held in Kuwait next December, the specialized committees started preparations on the projects and the studies which will be ratified during the summit.

Leading the agenda is the formulation of a new industrial policy for the GCC countries that would achieve the needed progress and which would replace their dependence on the oil industries.

The studies aim to remove all barriers obstructing the free movement of commodities between the GCC member countries. The studies also aim to provide a favorable climate to attract more foreign investment.

Studies suggested that there are 1289 commodities which could be moved between the member countries without custom duties, and only 15% of these commodities could face objections from some member countries.

Some believe that any commodity which contains 30% of national raw material could be considered a nationally manufactured commodity, making it eligible to be exempted from the custom duties. Others believe that the national raw material should not be less than 40%.

After many discussions, all the member countries agreed on the 30% which gave 1210 commodities the right to be exempted from the custom duties compared to 1169 last March.

The factories whose products were exempted from custom duties in the Gulf area last June represented 87.35% of the total number of 1386 factories which applied to the secretary general of the GCC to be exempted from the customs.

The number of factories which applied to be exempted from the custom duties are 314 from the UAE of which 274 applications were approved, 83 from Bahrain, 746 from Saudi Arabia of which 655 applications were approved, 70 from Oman of which 67 applications were approved, 48 from Qatar of which 43 applications were approved, 107 from Kuwait which were all approved.

Another study was prepared on the share of the foreign possession of the Gulf companies. The GCC countries agreed to keep the rate of Foreign ownership at 49 % while stipulating that the Gulf ownership should not be less than 51 %.

On the trade level the general secretary of the GCC prepared a memo in which it suggested easing the laws imposed on the Gulf citizens regarding their work in the whole sale and retail sale. And the abrogation of the condition that the citizen should not be involved in one activity, and that he should be resident in the country where his business is. The memo also suggested that the member country should have the right to stipulate that its citizens should own at least 50 % of the total shares of the company if the person who is going to be involved in the business is one of the citizen of the GCC countries.

The memo also called on giving the right to any citizen from the GCC countries to own any number of houses of any size and to give him the right to be involved in housing investments. The memo called on lifting all economic and professional barriers among the GCC countries.

Previous Stories:
  GCC naval forces hold joint exercise   (10/16/1997)
  Al Mudhaf to attend GCC meeting   (10/14/1997)
  1210 factories exempted from customs duties in Gulf   (9/29/1997)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search