Agence France Presse
ABU DHABI, March 28 (AFP) - Saudi membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is still at least two years off, a senior WTO official said Tuesday, while welcoming an easing of US sanctions against Iran.
Paul-Henri Ravier, a deputy director general of the organisation, also cautioned that once all the Gulf petromonarchies were members of the WTO and their planned customs union had come into existence, their status would change.
Of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) only Saudi Arabia and Oman are currently not members of the world trade body.
Saudi Arabia and the WTO are to hold another regular working meeting next week, Ravier told an economic conference in Abu Dhabi.
"It will certainly not be the last ... We have at least two more years to go."
Ravier did not disclose the outstanding issues in the negotiations with the world's oil superpower but said that Oman's accession, in contrast, was "not far" from being agreed.
After Riyadh and Muscat join their GCC partners as members of the WTO and once a Gulf customs union is set up as planned in 2005, however, "more stringent conditions" will apply to GCC states, he said.
The WTO official said the Gulf petromonarchies would no longer qualify as developing nations, but rather as developed countries on a par with EU members and other regional trading blocs.
Turning to the other side of the Gulf, Ravier said "the WTO welcomed the recent softening of the US position toward Iran" with its decision earlier this month to ease economic sanctions.
"It could facilitate the way for preliminary contacts" between Tehran and the WTO, he said. "We cannot keep aside important countries" such as Iran.
Saudi Commerce Minister Ossama bin Jaafar al-Faqih said in January that his country's bid to join the WTO now depended on bilateral talks with its key trading partners and that the multilateral track had been completed.
The kingdom has taken steps to liberalise its economy to qualify for WTO membership, providing incentives for foreign investment and seeking to increase the private sector role.
Saudi Arabia hopes WTO membership will open up global markets to its massive petrochemicals production, run by Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC).
European and US companies oppose this on the grounds that SABIC is subsidised in the form of 30-percent reductions on purchases of gas and liquified petroleum gas from government-owned Saudi Aramco.
SABIC maintains these reductions are the equivalent of what Saudi Aramco spends on storage, transport and other services for foreign clients, which it does not benefit from as a domestic client.:
