Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Muslims decry 'unfair' WTO rules on new members

Muslim delegates said on Monday that rules on Islamic countries bidding to join the World Trade Organisation had become more strict and that new applicants were being subjected to "unfair conditions".

A report by the Islamic Centre for Development of Trade did not say exactly what was blocking the entry of the eight Muslim countries, some of which had sought WTO membership for years.

"The access conditions of the new applicants have become excessive and inconsistent with the economic weight of the applicant country," said the report made available to Reuters.

"In fact, the candidates are subject to more restraining obligations than those to which the WTO members are subject to," it added.

Since the WTO meeting began on Friday in Qatar, Arab and Muslim trade ministers have held a series of talks to lobby for the eight countries to join the world trade club, delegates said.

"The Arabs have a unified position, which is to support bids by fellow Arab countries wishing to join the WTO," said Egypt's Minister for Economy and Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros-Ghali, who leads the Arab group.

The report, released after a meeting of Muslim delegates in Qatar on Monday, said the Geneva-based world trade club was demanding from Muslim applicants "unfair conditions that are stricter than those which the WTO members with an equal development level".

The Gulf Arab state of Qatar also chairs the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference, that represents 1.2 billion Muslims stretching from Indonesia to Morocco.

Some 38 of the OIC members are in the WTO. Among the eight countries seeking to join is oil superpower Saudi Arabia, one of four big economies outside the WTO. The other aspiring members are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Sudan and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia last week dampened expectations it would become a member soon by saying it was not willing to compromise its special status as the birthplace of Islam.

But Saudi economists say that strict adherence to Islam, which bans the consumption and trading of alcohol and pork, is not the main obstacle.

They say the conservative kingdom must first liberalise more sectors of its economy and overhaul parts of its legal system before it can meet stringent WTO requirements.

In the report, the Muslim states appeared to have aligned themselves with the developing countries which have demanded the rich nations to open their markets for more exports by poorer countries.

"The patching-up solutions that have appeared since Seattle are not efficient enough to right wrongs," it said in reference to the WTO draft declaration that showed a wide gap in positions between the haves and have-nots.

The report also lambasted the WTO for what it said was its undemocratic decision-making process, saying the views of developing countries were often ignored.

ALSO READ:
India and the WTO: News and issues