Agence France Presse
RIYADH, April 11 (AFP) - Officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the European Union began talks Tuesday in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on a free-trade agreement, the official Saudi news agency SPA reported.
The talks centre on the classification of the main exports from the GCC states, such as aluminium, petrochemical and refined oil products, SPA said.
The EU has insisted that the GCC must have its own customs union before it signs a free-trade agreement with the petromonarchies.
The GCC states, which are currently the fifth largest export market for the EU, are hit by EU taxes on aluminium exports and petrochemicals of at least six percent.
At the last GCC summit in November 1999, the body decided to put a customs union in place at the beginning of March 2005.
The six GCC members -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- must align their customs duties at the agreed levels by then.
The GCC has been trying since 1983 to seal a customs union as a vital step toward a Gulf common market worth 80 billion dollars in imports.
The Riyadh meeting will also look at the latest developments in negotiations on Oman and Saudi Arabia's membership to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the last two remaining countries in the Gulf not to have joined up, SPA said.
A WTO official said last month that Saudi Arabia's membership, which would accelerate measures to liberalise its economy, would not happen for another two years while Oman was "not far off".:
