M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan • Arab News Staff

RIYADH, 30 July 2003 — Senior officials of the Kingdom and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will meet next Tuesday to review Saudi Arabia’s progress toward joining the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Dr. Abdul-Majed Haddad, the UNDP’s Deputy Resident Representative, said that the meeting is being organized within the framework of the UN agency’s technical assistance program for Saudi Arabia.

“The purpose of this technical assistance project is to support the Saudi ministerial team responsible for WTO accession by providing advisory services and research work to formulate comprehensive negotiation strategies,” Dr. Haddad told Arab News here yesterday. Fool-proof preparation is necessary for the Saudi delegation, which will take part in the crucial fifth round of talks of the WTO Ministerial Council in Mexico next month.

The UNDP deputy chief said that “the meeting will examine how to ensure compatibility of the Kingdom’s trade-related laws with the WTO rules and how to adopt better negotiation strategies to serve the interests of Saudi Arabia.” The meeting, he said, will also “discuss how Saudi Arabia can derive benefits from the commercial diplomacy program of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).”

A consultative meeting of the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which includes Saudi Arabia, was held on Monday to prepare for the Mexico meeting and to coordinate positions on various issues. A delegation from Riyadh also attended an Arab ministerial meeting in Beirut on July 24 with the aim to prepare for the WTO’s ministerial meeting.

The Kingdom is undertaking final preparations to join the WTO by the end of the year after holding final rounds of talks with member states earlier.

The Kingdom will sign some 16 bilateral agreements with WTO member states as negotiations with most of the countries are reported to be at an advanced stage. This means Saudi Arabia can submit its membership documents to the WTO General Assembly, where 146 member countries will vote on the proposal. Riyadh has told the WTO about the progress made on legislation front, especially in terms of the new foreign investment regulations, import licensing, copyright laws, patents laws and trade marks.

“The UNDP has also provided trade-related and information-related assistance to the Saudi ministerial committee and the national team responsible for negotiating WTO accession,” Dr. Haddad said. The UNDP, he said, also seeks to enhance the information system of the Ministry of Commerce in a capacity-building exercise. Saudi Arabia applied for in July 1993 for accession to the WTO’s predecessor body, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). But a GATT working party set up briefly to study the request made no progress.

The UNDP is also working with other Saudi government agencies on a number of projects. It is cooperating on a road and transport management project, which will produce a national strategy by 2005.