GCC/EU Free Trade Area On Track For 2005 Launch

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Cyprus

04 April 2003

According to a report in Gulf News Online yesterday, a government official from the United Arab Emirates has indicated that negotiations remain on track for a joint EU/GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) customs union by 2005.

Majid Al-Owais, head of the UAE's Ministry of Finance and Industry Investment Department said that the two parties were agreed upon about 70% of the items in the EU/GCC Free Trade Agreement. The remainder of the agreement, which includes intellectual property rights and other goods and services, is expected to be concluded within two years.

The UAE government official indicated that smooth progress was being made in ironing out differences, and Europe appeared very enthusiastic about the EU/GCC deal. He revealed that meetings were being held every six weeks between the two delegations with the next meeting due to be held in May in Brussels.

Meanwhile, a meeting earlier in the month between the GCC members sought to overcome problems that the customs union had encountered in its early stages relating to a customs declaration form designed to record the entry of goods into the individual states. This was mainly due to the fact that Bahrain and Oman still use manual registration systems, while Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE have computerised operations. A technical committee is set to meet every six months to eliminate such problems.

The removal of all trading obstacles is essential to the Cooperation Council achieving its intra-GCC trade target of 70%, Owais announced. At present, trade within the GCC accounts for only 9% of the area's total.

The UAE official also signalled the intention to remove all intra-GCC checkpoints by 2005.

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