Isaura Daniel*
isaura.daniel@anba.com.br
São Paulo – Arab and South American governments are prepared to join forces in the energy sector. The theme deserved several paragraphs in the Buenos Aires Declaration, the document published at the end of the meeting of foreign ministers of both regions, which ended yesterday (21) in the Argentine capital. The text forecasts the establishment of mechanisms for bi-regional dialogue about energy for the exchange of experiences and promotion of cooperation in the sector. At the opening of the meeting, the matter of energy had already been mentioned as priority by the meetings host, Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana.
While Brazil is globally prominent in renewable energy, with research and production of alcohol and biodiesel, the Arabs are the main global producers of oil. The document disclosed yesterday shows the importance of environmentally sustainable energies, and it also praises the initiative of Saudi Arabia of establishing a fund for studies in the area of energy. The Saudis have the largest oil reserves in the world and announced the initiative in November last year, during the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) meeting.
In the economic area, as well as the energy question, trade also received special attention in the document. According to the final declaration formed by the ministers, advances have been made in negotiations between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Mercosur, the economic bloc made up of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, and steps are being taken for conclusion of an agreement between both blocs. The text also informs that in the near future talks for a trade agreement between the Mercosur and Morocco should also begin. The bloc and the Arab country signed in 2004 a framework agreement that showed the intention of formulating the treaty. The same has taken place with Egypt.
An appeal for countries in both regions to reduce trade barriers and expand reciprocal trade is also one of the main items in the "Economic Cooperation" section of the document. The ministers requested that the private initiative continue collaborating to increase reciprocal trade and investment and for investment to be made in areas like infrastructure, ores and energy. The declaration also points out the initiatives in tourism and calls on the travel agencies of each country to work on expanding the tourist flow between South America and the Arab nations.
One action that the ministers also pointed out is the promotion of a trade mission from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, between November and December last year, which collaborated to increase reciprocal knowledge in both regions. The trade mission was promoted by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil). The trip included a group of Brazilian businessmen in the civil construction sector.
In the document, the ministers stated that Arab and South American relations have advanced since the meeting between heads of state of both regions, in 2005, in Brazilian capital Brasília, but they asked for further intensification. They engaged themselves in expanding the convergence in international forums, asked for integral reform of the United Nations (UN) so that it may be more democratic, efficient, representative and transparent, and also for negotiations of the Doha Rounds to be retaken.
The declaration also mentioned, in the political area, questions like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the sanctions to Syria, the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, the unstable situation in Lebanon, the problems of Iraq and asked for peaceful solutions to be found to all these situations. The ministers stated that they have a positive outlook on closer relations between parliament members in Arab and South American nations. Social cooperation also received special attention in the document, which calls for a meeting, before April, in Algeria, to discuss the establishment of the Arab-Latin American Countries Library.
During the meeting it was agreed that the next summit of heads of state of both regions should take place in the second half of this year in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The meeting in Buenos Aires included representatives of the 34 Arab and South American nations, many of them ministers, including Saudi Foreign Minister and prince Saud Al-Faisal, the secretary general at the League of Arab States, Amr Mussa, and the minister of Foreign Relations of Brazil, Celso Amorim.
*Translated by Mark Ament
