| Trade Policy Advice Trade Policy Advice Program: LEBANON’s WTO accession Phase II 2004-2006 Financed
by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)
1. Background Shortly after independence in 1943, Lebanon acceded to the GATT as a founding member in 1947 and became a model for social and economic development in the Middle East. The country was unable to participate to the Uruguay Round negotiations due to the civil war, which ravaged the country and destroyed physical infrastructure and housing, displaced large portions of the population and weakened institutions. Lebanon thus formulated a request to negotiate its Accession to the WTO in 1999 under Article XII of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO. Accession to the WTO is seen by the Lebanese Government, together with the conclusion of economic and trade agreements with its main partners, as a means to allow Lebanon to re-integrate the world economy and to increase trade and investment with regional and global players. It is further seen by the Government as a vehicle to modernize economic and trade regimes aimed at ensuring more competitive and transparent behaviour by economic actors.
2. Overall Goal and Content The overarching goal of the Program is to facilitate Lebanon’s re-integration into the Multilateral Trading System, as a means to foster trade and investment with its regional and global partners. To this end, the Program provides advice at the Government’s request on the adequate measures in economic- and trade-related fields with a view to facilitating Lebanon’s successful accession to the WTO. The advice provided strives to ensure that the inputs for the negotiations and policy options modernise economic and commercial frameworks aimed at a broad-based and inclusive economic and social development. More specifically, the Program provides advice to the Government on approaches to the negotiations on market access for goods and services, as well as on the implementation of its obligations stemming from the various WTO agreements.
3. Objectives The Program aims at:
4. Activities The Program consists of two main components with related activities: A Trade Policy Advice component, consisting of advice and analytical inputs (“backstopping”) to the Government with regard to various aspects of WTO disciplines (e.g. market access for goods and services, agriculture, state trading, licensing, non tariff measures). Under this component, IDEAS provides the requested assistance to the Ministry of Economy and Trade during the negotiation process. Specific Technical Assistance components in sectors of key economic importance linked to the WTO Accession process. The exact scope of these components will be defined with the MOET in order to respond flexibly and rapidly to its specific needs during the Accession process. For example, assistance has been provided in the services negotiations both by external experts (monitored and coordinated by IDEAS Centre) and in-house capacity. Status
Report In 2005, Lebanon faced
a series of serious political crises which slowed work on its accession
negotiations and hence work under this project. Nonetheless,
one strategy mission was held early in the year and IDEAS Centre
provided Lebanese officials with a document analyzing aspects of
its export regime in agricultural products. IDEAS also
provided assistance to Lebanon in the preparation of the Fourth
meeting of its Accession Working Party held on 3 March 2006.
It is expected that assistance will also be provided in the preparation
of its revised offers in advance of the next working party.
5. Contacts
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