A symposium entitled “Arab Common Market-the Defensive Fence of the Arab Economy” was held in Tripoli, Libya, on 25-26 September. This seminar was jointly organized by the Council of Arab Economic Unity (CAEU) and the Academy of Graduate Studies and Economic Researches in the Libyan Republic.
Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, President of the Arab Management Society (AMS) has participated in the seminar. He provided a valuable research which focused on the contemporary developments of the international economy and its impact on the future of the Arab economy. Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh emphasized that the new international environment has imposed multiple challenges on the Arab countries to engage in economic and institutional reforms to avoid the disadvantages of this environment which is moving towards globalization, economic blocs and the liberalization of trade.
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh talked about the globalization and its economic effects as well as the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its impact. He also touched on the trend towards privatization since it is a part of the economic reform as a policy and management. He called for balancing and differentiating between the role of the public and private sectors, where roles must be distributed on the basis of balanced partnership provided that the interests of the state as a whole are fulfilled.
According to Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, restoring the credibility of the state is required and the role of the private sector in the overall development is also required. He also mentioned that the time has come to put an equation that reconciles between the two sectors; the public and the private, and that it is the time to establish coordination between them to play their parts in the issue of development within the desirable social balance.
And about the Middle East Project and its impact on the Arab Common Market (ACM), Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh confirmed that the schemes to establish what is called “The Middle East Project” aim ultimately to obliterate the Arab identity and to demise the Arab system through the fragmentation and melting of the Arab countries in economic Middle Eastern arrangements. Therefore, this project will be one of the most serious new challenges facing the Arab economy and its national institutions in the next century.
He also said that this project threatens the Arab Common Market (ACM) which is based on mutual and balanced economic interests among all member states in the market. He added that we must consider establishing an Arab common market as a matter of urgency to stand in the face of the schemes and plans that threaten the future of the Arab world.
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh talked about the European-Mediterranean Partnership and its impact on the Arab economy, he said: “Both of the European-Mediterranean and American-Mediterranean projects share a number of the most important goals, most importantly is that both projects seek to damage the Arab regional system, as they lead to the obstruction of the Arab economic unity and the ACM.” But he said that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership project is considered the best choice we have among the projects proposed for the region in light of current conditions compared to the challenges imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO), because it encourages the pan-Arab trade and supports the establishment of the environmental Arab trade organization and the Arab free trade zone.