Economic development in the Mediterranean region will require increased regional integration and the implementation of international best practices in legislation and regulations. On 30 and 31 May 2013 parliamentarians from the region gathered in Geneva to discuss how the UNECE and the UN Inter-Agency Cluster could work with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) and the PAM Panel on Trade and Investment in the Mediterranean as well as its Standing Committee on Economic, Social and Environmental Cooperation to support regional trade development priorities. A commitment from all parties to concrete cooperation in support of economic development in the Mediterranean was one of the conclusions of this Joint Trade Conference organized by PAM and the UN Inter-Agency Custer.
Among the areas identified where parliaments could benefit from increased support from the UN Inter-Agency Cluster were: trade infrastructure; trade facilitation; the trade standards and regulatory infrastructure; energy, investment, trade, transport, and water policies; public private partnerships; secure property rights; better business environments, especially for small and medium-sized companies; productive capacity development; enterprise support institutions; and managing risks in trade and food security.
Potential areas of cooperation between UNECE and PAM (17 out of PAM’s 28 members are UNECE member States) include:
- Energy and water resources management
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Public Private Partnerships
- Secure Property Rights
- Technical regulations and standardization policies
- Trade facilitation and electronic business
- Transport policy and agreements.
When opening the Conference, Mr. Francesco Amoruso, President of PAM and a member of the Italian Parliament, explained that the Mediterranean countries are facing many challenges. These include: rising unemployment levels; declining energy consumption; and a real estate market that was once an important engine of growth and now has been hard hit by the international financial crisis. As a result, almost all of the Mediterranean countries are projecting increased public deficits for 2013. Therefore, the region’s development prospects are not encouraging.
At the same time, Mr. Amoruso noted that the international character of the crisis requires all of the region’s countries to cooperate further and to implement agreed upon measures in support of trade. To support this, PAM and its Panel on Trade and Investment in the Mediterranean seek to facilitate discussions between Parliamentarians, private sector representatives and exporters to explore, in a consultative manner, tangible measures that could be taken. PAM attaches great importance to the work of UN including the support and advice of the Trade and Productive Capacity Cluster in designing such measures and in enhancing inter-regional cooperation in the Mediterranean region. This meeting was essential in helping to identify immediate, medium and long term areas for cooperation. In closing he emphasized that political stability is not only a requirement for obtaining economic prosperity, it is also its consequence.
Virginia Cram-Martos, Director of the UNECE Trade and Sustainable Land Management Division, emphasized in her opening remarks the key importance for economic development of regional cooperation and of implementing best practices in legal and institutional frameworks. To support this, UNECE is committed to supporting the implementation of UNECE norms, standards, best practices and conventions in PAM and UNECE member States. She also called attention to the richness of the Mediterranean as a shared resource and its importance as the basis for a geographically defined trade region.
Manuela Tortora, Chief of Technical Cooperation Services at UNCTAD and Coordinator of the UN Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity also participated in the opening. She explained the role of the Cluster in providing cooperation, coordination and coherence in trade activities within the UN and well as the support that it provides to member States by developing activities where the UN “delivers as one” in the trade area.
The conclusions of the conference will be submitted to the PAM Annual Assembly. They will then guide PAM and its Panel on Trade and Investment in the Mediterranean in implementing its activities at the national, regional and sub-regional levels, and will form the basis for future collaboration between PAM and the United Nations Trade and Productive Capacity Cluster.
Key note speeches and presentations delivered at the Conference are available at: http://www.unece.org/trade/welcome.htm
Note to editors
Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) www.pam.int/
Member States: Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Syrian Arab Republic, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia, Turkey.
Associate and Partner States: Romania, the Holy See.
United Nations Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity
The CEB Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity is an inter-agency mechanism dedicated to the coordination of trade and development operations at the national and regional levels within the UN system.
Members of the Cluster provide assistance in the areas of trade policy and productive capacity building, in particular supply side capacity; export capacity; capacity to implement trade and trade-related rules; dispute settlement capacity; negotiating capacity; as well as in research and analysis. The Cluster has an open-ended membership and is led by UNCTAD. Current Cluster members include UNIDO, UNDP, ITC, FAO, WTO, UNEP, ILO, UNCITRAL, UNOPS and the five UN Regional Commissions.