Iraq resumes drive to full WTO membership

After nine years of dormancy due to internal warfare and economic woes, Iraq wants to resume its effort to gain full membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO).    After nine years of dormancy due to internal warfare and economic woes, Iraq wants to resume its effort to gain full membership in the World Trade Organization. 
   “Iraq is fully committed to the process of economic reform and to be part of the global economic system,” Adel Al-Masoodi, director-general of the Foreign Economic Relations Department of Iraq’s Ministry of Trade and vice chairman of the Iraqi National Committee on Accession to the WTO, in a statement. “We look forward to opening new horizons for co-operation with the WTO, all international organizations and the international community.”
   Accession into the WTO is a lengthy process that can take years. However, the WTO applauded Iraq’s renewed commitment to joining the global trade body.
   “The accession of Iraq is important for the WTO and the multilateral trading system at large,” said Omar Hilale, the WTO’s chairman of the Working Party overseeing Iraq’s accession. “Iraq is one of the largest economies still outside that system. 
   “It is one of the most populous states in the Middle East with over 35 million people. It has a large and diverse economy with a GDP of roughly USD 167 billion. It lies at the crossroads of the Middle East, and is home to countless historic and cultural treasures,” he added. “Given its regional and, indeed, global strategic importance, it is thus appropriate that Iraq should take its place among the members of the organization whose rules govern over 98 percent of global trade.”
   The Working Party on Iraq’s accession was established in December 2004. Nine months later, in September 2005, Iraq circulated the Memorandum on the Foreign Trade Regime, which was reviewed together with the initial set of questions and answers by the Working Party at its first meeting in May 2007.
   The examination of Iraq’s trade regime continued during a second meeting in April 2008 on the basis of the second round of questions and answers, together with additional negotiating inputs including a legislative action plan, checklists for sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade, a questionnaire on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and agricultural supporting tables.
   The WTO noted that no activity had taken place at the Working Party level for Iraq’s accession since the second meeting.
   The Working Party chairman said if Iraq submits all the necessary updated negotiating inputs under the latest timeline, the next accession meeting will be held in 2018.