Representatives from Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen participated at the Brainstorming Meeting for Arab countries acceding to the WTO, held on May 3-5, 1999.
Twelve experts from UNDP, WTO, UNCTAD and WIPO were there to assist countries in the stage of their accession to WTO.
Issues that were addressed included status quo to the acceding countries, impact of TRIPs and TRIMs on acceding countries, opening up markets, petroleum industry, electronic commerce, and intellectual property. Negotiation sessions also took place between each team and the experts of WTO, UNCTAD, WIPO and UNDP (private sessions).
Sharing concerns and problems, illustrating general and technical issues, inquiring about the positives and negatives of the accession and the coming phases were the main features of the conference.
Tawfiq Zuwayyed (ASPIP), Tawfiq Ayyoub (ASCA), and Ruba Qalyoubi (LES - Arab Countries) were among the participants.