Economy & Trade, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Middle East & North Africa

ECONOMICS: Mideast Leaders Eager to Greet World Economic Elite

Emad Mekay

AMMAN, Jun 20 2003 (IPS) - The global business forum that helped to introduce a major faction of the Iraqi opposition to the world’s economic elite will gather in an extraordinary meeting in the Middle East on Saturday to discuss doing business in Iraq and throughout the troubled region.

The World Economic Forum, known for its high-profile business meetings in the alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland – including a gathering in January that featured the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress – will collect hundreds of political and economic luminaries at a Jordanian resort, some 30 kilometres from the capital Amman, Jun. 21-23.

Reconstruction contracts in Iraq, Arab-Israeli business relations and western prescriptions for stability in the region will dominate the agenda at the Dead Sea resort meeting, both in some 70 open sessions and in the important behind-the-scenes deals associated with the elitist forum.

The region’s business elites have greeted the meeting as an important opportunity to strike deals with international companies, urged on by government officials from the mostly undemocratic regimes of the area to "seize the chance" to grab contracts for Iraq and build relations with the multitude of multinational corporations present.

In Egypt, local newspapers were awash with praise of the forum, while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – among Washington’s main allies in the Middle East – convened an ad hoc meeting with his top economic advisors and representatives of the business community to plan their strategy here.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II exhorted his business people to strut their stuff and show off the country’s open economy, and the main TV channel ran several programmes discussing the event.

”At least we will benefit because the world will see that we have some tourist sites,” said one tourism expert quoted. ”Our companies could win deals with foreign companies too.”

Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, whose officials publicly scoffed at attempts to boycott U.S. and Israeli products to protest the occupation of Palestine and Iraq, has already expressed interest in winning rebuilding contracts in Iraq, despite popular opposition in Egypt to working with the United States, occupier of a fellow Muslim country.

Although the meeting will be held against a background of rising resistance to the U.S.-led attack on and occupation of nearby Iraq and renewed bloody attacks by Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories, officials were quick to say that politics will not overshadow business here.

On Wednesday, WEF Managing Director Frederic Sicre told a gathering of regional business leaders that they should ensure that economic issues remain atop of the agenda.

Civil society is expected to have a small presence here, due largely to a lack of local groups.

The major carrot that most of the region’s political leaders and business elites are chasing is a tantalising free trade agreement with the United States. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick is expected to deliver a major policy speech on the proposed Middle East Free Trade Agreement, now known as MEFTA, on Monday.

In a statement, Zoellick said the administration expects the MEFTA to be operating by 2013.

Washington says that trade liberalisation and increased economic integration in the region will create opportunities, generate growth, and promote security.

Local business groups and free-market economy proponents immediately backed the U.S. administration position here and are waiting anxiously for details.

"Free Trade Agreement with the United States to Promote Exports and Invite Investments," screamed Tuesday’s headline in the Egyptian daily newspaper ‘al-Ahram’, which quoted officials from the Arab American Chamber of Commerce.

In the story, Ahmed Galal, an economist with the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies, a think-tank founded by Egyptian business groups, says the deal will help the region just as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) aided Mexico.

"(The agreement) will boost direct foreign investment to Egypt on line with what happened in Mexico, which received, on top of the American investments, those from Asian countries like Japan."

Several of the public sessions of the three-day meeting are devoted to Iraq, particularly how the global private sector can help to rebuild it and how to coordinate that international effort.

The administration of U.S. President George W Bush has been widely criticised, by foes and allies alike, for doling out rebuilding contracts to American businesses even before the attack began and without opening them to bidding. It has since relented and permitted non-U.S. firms to bid for sub-contracts.

Local experts here say that the economic benefits for locals who get involved in the rebuilding are likely to dampen public political opposition expressed by the region’s regimes, the media, academia and some think tanks and grassroots groups.

Among those attending will be U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the U.S. overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, and Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Arab League chief Amr Mussa, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai will be here, along with the foreign ministers of Spain, Greece, Germany, Turkey and Israel.

Official from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will also attend, alongside senior executives from multinationals like ABB, Nestle and Boeing.