Kuwait calls for facilitating GCC’s Customs procedures

Plan to boost private sector’s role in development

MANAMA, May 22, (KUNA): Kuwait Minister of Commerce and Industry Khaled Al-Roudhan called on Monday for facilitating customs procedures and movement of goods among the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Al-Roudhan, also Acting Minister of State for Youth, was speaking to KUNA on sidelines of meetings with GCC ministers of commerce and chiefs of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the Arab Gulf countries.

He said the two-day meeting aimed at boosting private sector’s role in sustainable development.

Al-Roudhan, who arrived in Manama last night, said they have discussed how to facilitate movement of trucks via crossings, as well as the piling of goods at sea ports.

Bahrain’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Zayed Al-Zayani said the meeting was within framework of cooperation between the private and public sectors with with objective of pushing economic growth.

Addressing the meeting, Al-Zayani said the private sector was playing an important role in economic development. Abdulrahman Al-Utaishan, first vice-president of the GCC Union of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, called for developing the eco-

nomic partnership between the public and private sectors.

Meanwhile, the Ministers of Commerce and Industry in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met on Tuesday to examine strategies to deepen cooperation on both regional and international levels.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s Assistant Undersecretary

for International Affairs and Foreign Commerce Nimr AlSabah told KUNA that the meeting tackled a comprehensive agenda.

They mainly discussed issues such as consumer protection and patent transfers in the GCC member states, the official added.

Meanwhile, director General of Kuwait’s Public Authority for Industry

(PAI) Abdulkarim Taqi said that a meeting of GCC Undersecretaries of Commerce and Industry yielded plans for a joint Gulf industrial strategy.

In a speech to open the 55th meeting of the GCC Commercial Cooperation Committee, Bahraini Minister of Commerce and Industry Zayed Al-Zayani said that commercial trade within the GCC has made tangible progress.