1996 11 18 Tuesday No. : 26696
MEASURES URGED TO BRING BACK ARAB FUNDS FROM WEST
The UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan bin Nasser al Suweidi yesterday said the Arab states must create conditions to lure back billions of dollars in assets that have been deposited in the West by their businessmen, reported the Khaleej Times. Speaking to a group of Arab journalists at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, al Suweidi stressed that the flight of Arab capital was due to certain flaws in the domestic financial and economic structure.
Al Suwaidi was responding to a question on why the Arab countries and especially the rich Gulf states are not investing their urge resources in the Middle East instead of the West. He also ridiculed some reports which estimated the total Arab assets in the West at more than $ 600 billion, most of them belonging the Gulf states. Al Suwaidi stressed that the UAE enjoys one of the best banking systems in the world, as evinced by its overall excellent performance. He also said that any person in the UAE has the right to put his money in any bank abroad without any intervention from the Central Bank. He also reiterated his support for an overhauling of the current banking laws in the UAE to make them in line with international standards. Citing an example, the Central Bank Governor said the Bank will request all commercial banks in the future to report all bad credits and add them to their liabilities in their balance sheets. "Some of the banks have granted loans to a number of their clients although they failed to meet the general requirements and eventually defaulted in their payments," the Central Bank chief maintained.
Al Suweidi added that the banks are expected to achieve higher net profits from their general operations at the end of this year, which will ultimately contribute to a higher gross domestic product, GDP. "In addition, the improved oil prices in the international market will bring greater prosperity to the UAE and also help reduce the deficit in the budget," al Suwaidi noted. The prices of oil in the international market stood at around $ 23.0 per barrel, although the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, had set the price at $ 21.0. Commenting on the role of the non-oil sector in the country, al Suweidi said that banking, trade, industry, services and tourism represent more than 40.0% of the total GDP in the UAE. For his part, the President of the Emirates Industrial Bank, EIB, Mohammed Abdul Baqi, pointed out that his bank had granted more than Dh 188.0 million in loans to many industrial projects in the country, adding that the bank is expected to grant more than Dh 300.0 million by the end of this year. Baqi also called for the creation of a strong economic market among the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council, AGCC, states because, collectively, these countries are considered as one of the richest blocs in the world.
He also warned that the AGCC states must brace themselves for an uphill struggle when they join the World Trade Organisation, WTO. Baqi maintained that the Arab and Gulf states must give more incentives to their local businessmen to allow them to invest in industrial projects. "We need to pave the way for such an alliance, especially when we are in the process of joining the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade, GATT," he said, noting that the time is not ripe to establish a single economic entity among the 22 Arab states, due to complicated political reasons. However, Baqi admitted that the AGCC has not yet resolved differences on a single tariff for its six member countries. "It is imperative that a common understanding on the issue of the tariffs among the AGCC states is reached if we want to proceed with the single Gulf market," he was quoted as saying.
UAE WON'T EXCEED 15% IMPORT DUTY CEILING
The UAE has agreed not to exceed a ceiling of 15% import duty on agricultural and industrial products as part of its obligations towards the World Trade Organisation, WTO, a top WTO official said yesterday. In an interview with Gulf News, Anwar al Hoda, Deputy Director General of the WTO, said, "The WTO does not stipulate the level of tariffs or import duties but leaves it to each Government to decide on that level but a country makes a binding commitment not to raise tariffs once they have been reduced." He added that the UAE had a low level of duties and was simply asked to commit itself not to raise them. "This commitment does not present any problem to the Emirates and in fact it gives it sufficient flexibility for the future since the present actual import duties are either 4.0% or 0.0%, so that if and when necessary the UAE can increase duties on different items up to 15.0%," he said. Al Hoda added that the UAE's commitment on chemicals and pharmaceuticals is to bind duties generally at 0.0% to 6.5% but these rates will become applicable only after 10 to 15 years."The UAE has not made any commitments to telecommunication services and its commitments to financial services are limited to the existing situation. It is specifically provided that there are no commitments for new licenses for operating bank branches and no commitments for the expansion activities of existing financial entities," the WTO official said.
The UAE's schedule with the WTO also provides that foreign service companies can establish a commercial presence in the UAE through either a representative office or an incorporation as a company in the UAE with a maximum foreign equity participation of 49.0%, subject to UAE laws. He added that further restrictions and limitations provide that foreigners and foreign companies cannot acquire or own land and real estate in the UAE, while foreign service companies cannot bring foreign staff, except for no more than 50.0% of managers, executives and specialists. He pointed out that the terms of the protocol of Accession gives the UAE time to implement certain provisions of the WTO agreements. "One such example is the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which the UAE has to implement by the turn of the century," al Hoda said. He pointed out tat the UAE will reap benefits from its membership in the WTO since its status as a trading nation will allow its to influence the present and future course and direction of multilateral trading which will have an important bearing on the present and future economy of the Emirates. "The UAE's exports will also benefit by gaining access to markets of both the developed and the developing countries on a stable basis and under favourable conditions," he said.
Al Hoda added that the UAE's exports will benefit from the liberalisation of tariffs negotiated under the Uruguay Round, noting that the average tariff of developed countries on industrial products is below 5.0%, which will be applicable to the UAE's exports. He said that the UAE's exports of petrochemicals and chemical products would also benefit as both developed and developing countries have reduced their tariffs on petrochemicals and chemical products, with the new tariffs varying from 0.0 to 6.5%. The WTO official highlighted the possibilities for the UAE's textile industry, which has the potential to expand. "In accordance with the provisions of the WTO agreement on textiles and clothing, there will be a lesser possibility for developed countries such as the US or Canada to impose quotas on UAE textile imports which are presently under quotas as the disciplines for applying new quotas are stricter under the WTO," he pointed out.
Continuing, al Hoda added that the UAE trade relations with the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council, AGCC, countries will not be affected by its membership of the WTO as the rules provide that the UAE can receive and accord preferential treatment, through special provisions to customs unions and free trade areas. "The UAE will also benefit from the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism which allows trade disputes to be arbitrated by a three-member panel agreed upon by the two countries involved in a dispute," he explained. Al Hoda is presently in the Emirates along with five other WTO officials, who participated in a seminar on 'The Implications of UAE Membership in the WTO' which was held yesterday at the Abu Dhabi Hilton. The seminar was organised by the Ministry of Economy and Commerce and the WTO.
SIR BANI YAS MONASTERY A MAJOR FIND, SAY LEADING SCHOLARS
The pre-Islamic Christian monastery and church on the island of Sir Bani Yas has been recognised as a major new discovery in the archaeology and history of the region by a top group of international scholars at a workshop held at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, last week, according to the Emirates News. The conference, the 5th Late Antiquity and Early Islam Workshop, dealt in particular with the theme of 'Trade and Exchange in the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East'. The discovery of the Sir Bani Yas monastery was presented to the Workshop by Dr Geoffrey King, Director of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, project, during the course of a paper entitled 'The Arabian Gulf, the trade infrastructure and Nestorianism: Fieldwork in Abu Dhabi and Ras al Khaimah'.
This was the first formal presentation of the discovery to an academic audience, which included scholars from major British, European and Middle Eastern specialised in Byzantine and early Islamic history, archaeology and literature. The announcement of the Sir Bani Yas discovery provoked considerable interest among the scholars taking part in the Workshop. In addition to Dr King's explanation of the site and of other discoveries in the Emirates, such a those in Ras al Khaimah, Dr Marlia Mango of Oxford University's Institute of Archaeology put the find into the broader context of Nestorian churches and their design as recorded elsewhere in the Middle East. Dr Mango also raised the possibility that the Sir Bani Yas monastery may have been related to the Nestorian penetration of the trade networks in the Sixth Century AD Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
The Sir Bani Yas Monastery was recognised at the Workshop as being "a very major new discovery that brought Byzantine and early Islamic studies into a new and unfamiliar area", according to a press release issued by the workshop organisers. The papers from the workshop will eventual appear in the series 'Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam: the Byzantine and early Islamic Near East'. published by the Darwin Press of Princeton, New Jersey. The Workshop and its publications are based at the SOAS, the Wellcome Foundation and Oxford University.