GENEVA - At the fifth meeting of the working party for Lebanon’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on May 3, 2007, members agreed to draft a first report, which will outline the terms of its membership. In parallel, Lebanon will continue to supply information on its trading regime. This process will help Lebanon to comply with the WTO agreements.
According to a press release by the WTO, head of the Lebanese delegation, Economy and Trade Minister Sami Haddad urged members to treat his country’s application sympathetically because of its recent political problems and because, he said, Lebanon has a liberal economy.
A number of Arab, Middle Eastern and developing countries supported Lebanon’s application, either as groups or individually. Speakers included the Arab Group (Morocco speaking), the informal group of developing countries (Paraguay speaking), Tunisia, the Gulf Cooperation Council members (Saudi Arabia speaking), Jordan, the European Union (EU), China, the United States, Egypt, Chinese Taipei and Canada.
Among the issues members raised were privatization, pricing policies, trading rights, import duty drawback for exports, import licensing, technical barriers to trade (standards), sanitary-phytosanitary measures, free zones, agricultural exports subsidies (some countries want Lebanon to commit not to use these, as has been the case with all other new WTO members) and Intellectual Property (particularly geographical indications and the possible relationship between these and trademarks).
Lebanon has met bilaterally with the US, Cuba, Australia, Chinese Taipei, the EU and Japan but so far none of these negotiations have been completed. Canada has also bilateral talks with Lebanon.