Move away from protectionist tendencies: Swedish minister
Published: Feb 16, 2010 00:25 Updated: Feb 16, 2010 00:25
JEDDAH: Sweden, whose trade with Saudi Arabia stands at $1.5 billion, is embarking on a concerted effort to expand the bilateral relations with a renewed and vigorous process of interaction between the two business communities, and also between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the European Union (EU).
“Despite the world financial crisis, our bilateral trade with the Kingdom has jumped by 35 percent over the previous year,” Swedish Minister of Trade Dr. Ewa Helena Bjorling told a press conference on the sidelines of the Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF) on Monday.
Bjorling, a dentist by profession and a politician of the Moderate Party, who was a panelist at the second session of the third day of the JEF, which was devoted to tackling protectionism in trade and investment, said she utilized the visit to discuss protectionist policies in official quarters in Riyadh and with GCC Secretary General Abdul Rahman Al-Attiyah. “Our talks centered around the terms and conditions for a free trade agreement in the context of globalization, said Bjorling, Europe’s former representative in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s working group on HIV/AIDS.
Asked whether the Western powers would consider replicating the kind of Saudi regulatory system that has insulated the Kingdom from being impacted by the world economic slowdown, she said: “The Swedish way is to increase transparency and focus on the free market system with the EU. It’s true that most of the world economies were affected, some of them very badly, by the global crisis. No doubt, the Saudi economy has remained strong, but it must be realized that it is indirectly impacted (by the world crisis).”
As regards reports that world economies are on way to fast recovery, Bjorling said: “Recovery will come, but how fast it will be depends on each affected country. Our concern is how best we can reach free trade agreements between the GCC and the EU, so trade can flourish among their member-countries,” she said and urged the GCC to move away from protectionist tendencies and adopt a flexible stand to facilitate trade .
Sweden is an open and trade-oriented country. It is free and sustainable trade that is the base of its welfare. A priority for the Swedish Presidency is that human rights should influence the full range of policy areas in EU external action. “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) fits in here; it is a natural part of our belief in open markets, and businesses in Europe are today often engaged in environmental and social policies.”
CSR, which is now of strategic concern to the EU, is most successful when it is business-owned and business driven. “Whatever frameworks or tools we develop, they must make sense in a business context and in the realities of day-to-day decision making,” she earlier told the JEF session.
“I’m also aware that we are in an increasingly globalized market in which the language and meaning of CSR needs to be as objective and universal as possible. It is also a world in which governments and businesses are taking an active interest in how CSR is developing, since we tend to see this as a perfect tool for protecting human rights, and combating climate-change and corruption. “CSR needs certain guidelines as much as any other arena of business activity.”
