Afrique en ligne

Arab Maghreb Union to accelerate setting up of free-trade area

9 June 2010

Pana/Tripoli, Libya - The ninth session of trade ministers from the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) ended on Monday in Tripoli with the reaffirmation to accelerate the setting up of a free-trade area within member countries of the organization.

The project aims at consolidating trade within Maghrebis and promoting the complementarity and economic integration process within member countries.

According to the minutes of the proceedings, the Maghrebi trade ministers agreed to hold an extraordinary session for the adoption of the agreement project to set up the free-trade area between AMU countries - Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Algeria and Morocco.

The resolutions of the ministers called on the group in charge of completing the agreement to convene a meeting later this year to study basic installations.

They ministers said they were ’very pleased’ with the results of the working group in charge of the Maghrebi unified custom pricing and asked it to meet more frequently to complete its work.

They agreed to charge the AMU secretary-general to draft a document on the simil arities and differences between the regulations and measures for countries to be examined by the working group during a meeting to be held in November this year.