The World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting scheduled for June 21-23, 2003, in Amman, Jordan, will provide a "welcome and timely opportunity" for US officials to meet with government and private sector representatives and discuss Bush administration initiatives to promote economic reform, educational opportunities and expanded trade and investment in the region, US Under Secretary of State Alan Larson said.
Briefing reporters June 17 at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in Washington, Larson said that Secretary of State Colin Powell and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick would attend the Amman meetings along with seven or eight other senior US government officials.
High on their agenda will be discussion of President Bush's broad goals for the region—first outlined in a May 9 policy speech—that include building a US-Middle East Free Trade Area within a decade. The president also outlined proposals to help countries in the region provide broader and better education to more of their citizens, especially women and young people, and to supporting local efforts to strengthen legal and political institutions.
Other topics on the Forum program include reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Larson said, adding: "We think it will be a good opportunity to raise support for the task at hand, which is helping the Iraqi people reclaim their future."
He also noted that the United States is working with the United Nations and the World Bank to organize a June 24 conference in New York that will focus on ways to mobilize resources to meet Iraqi reconstruction needs.
In a separate briefing, Ambassador Paul Bremer, the top US civilian administrator in Iraq, announced June 17 in Baghdad that he and several Iraqi representatives would be attending the Forum meetings.
The Geneva-based World Economic Forum is a non-profit organization generally known for its meetings of high profile corporate and government leaders each January in Davos, Switzerland. Planners of the organization's "Global Reconciliation" summit in Jordan say they hope the meetings of more than 1,000 world leaders in business, government and civil society will build on current efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.
Asked to comment on the Bush administration's most recent initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Larson said Secretary Powell would likely "take every opportunity" in the region to discuss the "road map" for peace. He also underlined that one of the ways the United States hopes to help the Palestinian people is by expanding their economic opportunities and their ability to trade with their neighbors and with the rest of the world.
"Finding ways to expand trade among the countries of the region is something that makes sense to us," Larson said. "We need to determine whether it makes sense to the countries of the region."
Overall, Larson said, the US trade agenda calls for moving "in a graduated way" towards freer trade both within the Middle East and between the region and the rest of the world. It also involves working with countries individually to determine how best to help them meet their goals. "It depends on what the leaders in the region want to do," Larson said.
To illustrate, Larson cited a number of different trade-liberalizing efforts in the region. He pointed to Saudi Arabia, which has declared an interest in World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, and said the United States is prepared to provide technical assistance to help
speed along the process.
The United States is negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with Morocco and exploring the possibility of an FTA with Bahrain. Other countries, Larson said, might prefer to negotiate an investment treaty with the United States. He noted that in the case of Jordan, a bilateral investment treaty served as a stepping-stone to a full free trade agreement with the United States
Asked to comment on developments relating to Iraq's debt situation, Larson said no decisions would be made until the relevant data had been collected and analyzed. He predicted, however, that upon completing the review countries would determine that "it will be necessary to have significant debt relief" for Iraq.
"That is, at this stage, only an expectation, but it is a strongly held expectation," Larson said. He noted that major creditor countries have indicated they do not expect Iraq to make debt payments before the end of 2004. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
