GENEVA, 12 February 2004 — Iraq was granted observer status at the World Trade Organization yesterday, a first milestone in the long road to joining the 146-member group and reviving its foreign trade.
The decision was taken by the 146 member states of the WTO at a meeting of in Geneva, a spokesman for the global trade body, Keith Rockwell, told journalists.
“It’s done. They have been accepted,” Rockwell said. Iraq’s governing council, which announced last November that it was seeking observer status in an attempt to boost its long-term economic prospects, welcomed the move. “This is a good day for Iraq and it gives me great pleasure to come here today to thank you on behalf of the government and people of Iraq for accepting our request for observer status at the WTO,” Ahmad Al-Mukhtar, a senior trade official at Iraq’s Governing Council, told the meeting. “It is an important step for Iraq toward integration into the global economy,” he added.
Observer status at the WTO lasts five years and allows countries to get a feel for the organization and rules governing fair trade among the 146 member states, including major markets such as the United States, the European Union and China.
At the end of the period a country can make a request for membership, but even then it would still face several years of negotiations with other trading nations before it could join. “Iraq is undergoing a transition and today it has taken the first step on the long hard road to accession to the WTO,” said al-Mukhtar. The move will help the country draft laws and practices which are consistent with WTO standards while it rebuilds its battered economy, he explained. Like other countries in the same situation, Iraq will still be outside the liberalized world system while it is an observer. It will not be able to benefit from global trade agreements lifting barriers to its products and services on foreign markets.
