International Trade With The Middle East And North Africa

"While very diverse in many respects, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries nevertheless also share some common characteristics, including a number of important shared challenges for policymakers."The Middle East and North Africa region has great potential for economic growth and prosperity in the 21st century. Yet, this potential will not be realized unless governments and private sector leaders in the region forge partnerships for development. An indispensable resource for all those working within the international development community, especially within the Middle East and North Africa region, Trade Policy Developments in the Middle East and North Africa offers policy and institutional alternatives to help both parties achieve that goal.This volume describes and analyzes recent trade policy developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Contributors—almost all economists from the region—review recent trends in trade performance, assess current trade and investment regimes, and discuss some of the emerging microeconomic policy challenges that confront governments and firms seeking to export and trade. Topics addressed include the need and scope for using regional integration and economic free zones as a tool of development, mobilization of non-trade tax bases, efficient enforcement of product standards to ensure health and safety of citizens, and implementation of modern information technologies to facilitate customs clearance.This book is the second in a series from the Mediterranean Development Forum, a partnership of 10 Middle East and North Africa Region think tanks and the World Bank Institute. This volume will be of interest to development specialists, policymakers, and investors.

There is a large potential for expanding trade in the Middle East and North Africa region. This work discusses ways forward for trade integration, capturing the diversity of country experiences within the region without losing the generality of principles involved.

This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of trade relations with the Middle East and Arab countries from the perspectives of law, business, policy and culture in the Middle East and the Arab world and their interaction with the wider world, particularly Western countries. The rapidly evolving economy of the Middle East and the Arab region is undergoing significant change, and establishing modern foreign ownership law, robust company, business and investment regulations, modern legal professions while keeping its basic traditional and Islamic principles. This book covers a number of important theoretical and practical aspects of commercial and trade relationships and law. It examines case studies of trade and investment relations between Arab and Middle Eastern countries and Western Countries, such as Australia, UK and US, touching on such topics as corporation law, arbitration and foreign judgments, future mobility and disruptive technology law, financial services law, charity law, trusts and cultural law. Exploring emerging trade and investment ties between Arab and Middle Eastern countries and Western countries, it will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners with an interest in international trade and investment law.

This important book examines the impact of recent changes in the world economy on trade policy within the MENA region and its economic relations with the rest of the world.

Over the past decade, four major developments in global economic integration have shaped trade policy and the economic performance of countries within the Middle East and North Africa region: the emergence of global supply chains, the growth of trade in services, the rise of China and India as major international trading powers, and regional integration. These developments, along with the labor and natural resource endowments of particular countries (some are resource-poor but labor-abundant, some resource-rich and labor-abundant, and some resource-rich and labor-importing), have influenced export diversification outcomes across the region. Yet these countries may not be taking full advantage of all of the opportunities the four new trends offer to them. 'Trade Competitiveness of the Middle East and North Africa: Policies for Export Diversification' examines the region's trade policy agendas and their results by focusing on the countries' response to these four key developments in international trade. As the region recovers from the global financial and economic crises, the book identifies reforms that could allow countries to further strengthen global production networks, benefit more from trade in services, better compete in external markets to face the rise of China and India, and reach the full potential of regional integration. If thoroughly implemented, especially by oil exporters, all of these reforms could help boost growth and job creation in the region.

The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary. This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years. In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.

This book summarizes the constraints to and opportunities for deepening economic integration within the MENA region and beyond. Trade and investment reform are discussed together with physical connectivity, cross-border trade facilitation, infrastructure networks, and the vital role of logistics.