The conference on Maghreb Economic Integration, which was held on February 17th to mark the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the Maghreb Union, was attended by high-ranking Tunisian officials, businessmen and professors.
"We must abolish bureaucracy in the Maghreb countries. It hampers ... business activities," said Tunisian businessman Kamel Ben Yaglan. "The barrier is not the Maghreb people, but the bureaucrat."
Participants acknowledged progress in economic relations among Maghreb countries such as Tunisia and Libya, and reaffirmed their conviction that economic integration is essential.
However, they said that trade among Maghreb countries was still at a low level compared to that in regions such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. According to Mohamed Jamal Alifa of the Tunisian Ministry of Commerce, Tunisian-Libyan trade increased to 1.12 billion dinars in 2009, while trade with Mauritania did not exceed 28.7 million dinars. Foreign investment in the Maghreb, he added, was still negligible.
Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia set up the Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote co-operation and economic integration in a common market. The year 1994 saw the creation of the Maghreb Free Trade Zone, which has yet to be put into action. Free trade agreements were signed between Morocco and Tunisia in 1999, between Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Jordan in 2004 and between Tunisia and Algeria in 2008.
The conference witnessed debates on economic integration, the trade zone project for the Maghreb countries, and the co-operation between developing countries.
Tunisian officials presented their views to participants. "Reinforcing the Maghreb countries' integration has become essential in the new world order," Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane said in the event's opening session. For his part, Development Minister Mohamed Nouri Jouini called for speeding up such major projects as the Maghreb highway, railroads, and the Maghreb telecommunications satellite.
The assistant to the secretary-general of the Arab League, Chedli Nafati, told participants that "there are promising steps in intra-Maghreb relations, but we haven't achieved the milestones". Nafati said the barriers to progress went beyond the economic level, calling them "political".
"[T]there is no will to go beyond nationalist interests," said the secretary-general.
Participants agreed to press on to reach the region's potential for trade and development.
"There is latent energy in the Maghreb region: a market with approximately 100 million people", said Professor Azam Mahjoub, adding that there were "mainly institutional barriers. We have to reform the institutions at the level of the Maghreb countries".
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