Cairo - His Excellency Eng. Abdenbi Manar, Director General of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization participated in the works of the 105th session of the Economic and Social Council at finance, economy and trade ministers´ level, in order to endorse the draft decisions issued by the recommendations of the meeting of senior officials and the social and economic committees. This session considered the Great Arab Free Trade Area item study and the developments of the Arab Customs Union, taking into account that it is the main focus of the work of this session because of the important points included in the item, embodied in the development of the list of procedural rules related to the dispute settlement mechanism within the framework of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area as well as the customs cooperation agreement and the liberalization of trade in services between Arab countries. Participants welcomed the role played by the Arab Accreditation Cooperation (ARAC) as one of the pillars of quality infrastructure within the framework of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area.
The session dealt with the related discussion on the economic and social files preparation item for the upcoming ordinary Arab summit in March 2020. It also considered the preparation of the suggested topics to be included in the draft of the economic and social file submitted to the Arab-African summit in its fifth session in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the month of March 2020, in addition to discussing all issues of joint Arab economic and social work.
The session also included endorsing the report and decisions of the 32nd session of the Arab Transport Council of Ministers, which had reviewed the European Union law on fair competition in air transport, the role of the Arab bloc and the efforts made to protect Arab common interests in the field of air transport, by including into the decision assurances not to apply European law to deal with the competitive strength of Arab and non-European airlines.
The report and recommendations of the extraordinary meeting of the Organizations Committee for Coordination and Follow-up emanating from the Economic and Social Council were approved, through which approval of the report and recommendations of the technical committee concerned with studying the unified statutes of the specialized Arab organizations was granted.
It is worth noting during this session the handover of the presidency from His Excellency the Minister of National Economy of the State of Palestine, President of the previous session to His Excellency the Minister of Finance of the State of Qatar, President of the current session took place.