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Almost 10 years ago, Sharjah hosted Pakistan’s one-day match against the Sri Lankans in what was the grand old stadium’s first women’s international match
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EU Must Take Initiative to Reactivate FTA Talks: Lubna
ABU DHABI — The European Union, or EU, must take the initiative to reactivate talks with the UAE on Free Trade Agreement which have slowed down in the recent past, according to UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi.
“We (EU and the UAE ) are agreed on the principles on the FTA, and the only the discussions on the text were getting delayed. The UAE has launched FTA talks with other countries as the discussions with the EU were getting enormously amount of time,”the minister said during an interactive session with a group of visiting foreign media representatives here on Monday.
In all, the UAE and the EU have completed 24 rounds of talks on the FTA, and this included some discussions at the ministerial level and technical committees. The last round was held in January 2008, according to the MoFT website.
“May be they (the EU) have been preoccupied with the measures to be taken to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis on them in the recent past, and were unable to focus on the FTA talks. Now the initiative must come from them to reactivate the dialogue,” the minister said.
In the meantimethe UAE has ratified the FTAs signed between the GCC and the countries like Singapore and New Zealand as well as the four members of the European Free Trade Association Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland
The MoFT has been taking various steps to eliminate the trade barriers between the UAE and other countries. “Even in these challenging periods our position has been that the steps taken to protect the domestic enterprises should not lead to choking of global trade,” the minister said.
Asked whether there has been any pressure on the UAE from the United States to curb trade with Iran, she said, “Iran is an important trade partner of the UAE, and any decision that will impact on thetrade between the two countries will be taken only under a multi-lateral framework, and bilaterally.” The emphasis of the UAE was on diversifying foreign trade sector both in terms of the countries and products.
The manufacturing and service sectors are growing rapidly in the country. The non-oil sectors now contribute to 63.2 per cent of the GDP of the UAE, Shaikha Lubna said. The UAE was also trying to become the hub of exports and re-exports in the MENA region.
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