Renewal of GCC-EU trade talks urged

The European Union and Qatar are too important to each other to let trade talks lie dormant, the vice chairman of the Qatar Chamber told a business networking event recently, according to the chamber.

Mohamed bin Twar recently went before a business-networking event of Qatari and EU business people to announce Qatar Chamber’s hopes for a rekindling of free trade agreement talks between the two regions.
 
“I’d like to seize this opportunity to express that Qatar Chamber hopes to resume talks on the EU-GCC free trade agreement, which has been suspended in 2008. Indeed, there is a real desire and keenness in the GCC to find common bases that will help resume these negotiations for the benefits of EU and GCC economies,” Bin Twar said.
 
EU member states with representatives at the meeting were Spain, Portugal, Romania, Germany, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and the UK.
 
“The EU is the number one trading partner for Qatar. The GCC, as a whole, is our fourth export market and Qatar is the third largest economy for the EU in the GCC after Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” said Lucie Berger, head of Trade Delegation of EU to the GCC. “In terms of import, Qatar is almost similar to the UAE.”