Ten Arab states meet in Morocco tuesday to discuss setting up of free trade zone

Ten Arab states will hold a meeting in Rabat Tuesday to look into the project to set up an Arab free trade area.

The meeting, held at Morocco's invitation, will be attended by the foreign ministers of Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Jordan and the representatives of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.

Libya and Mauritania will be attending the meeting as members of the Arab Maghreb Union (that also musters Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) and observers in the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation process.

Four of these Arab states, namely Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, are already bound at the bilateral level by accords setting up free trade areas. Projects to set up similar areas are under discussion between the other states.

Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are also bound to the European Union by association accords while association accords between the European Union and Algeria and Syria are under negotiation.

The Rabat meeting is meant to set up an Arab-Mediterranean economic partnership project as a first phase towards the establishment of an economic partnership between all the members of the Arab League. It equally seeks agreement on a common plan of action between the participating countries and the European Union.

The meeting, the first of the kind of the Arab-Mediterranean countries, is deemed as a new orientation in Arab action, crippled by political differences.

In his speech to the Arab ordinary summit held in Amman (last March), King Mohammed VI had urged Arab heads of state to grant priority to economic, technological and scientific cooperation and to set aside ideological differences and political strives.

Morocco's initiative to summon the meeting of Arab-Mediterranean countries evidences again the kingdom's role within the UMA and the Arab League as a country aspiring to the unity of Arab ranks through economic cooperation and partnership and through the laying down of a bridge between the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean.