US expects FTA with Bahrain to benefit Middle East
Gulf News, 8 Oct 2005 (UAE)
US expects FTA with Bahrain to benefit Middle East
By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama:
The Bahrain-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will help support ongoing political, social and economic reforms in Bahrain, and signal to other reforming countries in the region the benefits of pursuing market liberalising policies, a senior US trade official has said.
Bahrain signed the FTA with the United States in September last year, becoming the first Gulf state to do so.
"In addition to the FTA with Bahrain, we have signed Trade and Investment Framework Agreements with Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen and the UAE in 2004. The strong desire of these countries to conclude FTAs with the United States leads to more certain market access for goods and services, high standards for intellectual property, transparency, and anti-corruption that only such agreements can provide. This FTA is a model that Bahrain’s neighbours can soon share," Assistant US Trade Representative for Europe and the Mediterranean Shaun Donnelly on Thursday night said in his testimony to the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade.
The Senate is currently reviewing the agreement signed in September 2004 in Washington, the first with a GCC country. Bahrain’s parliament endorsed the agreement in July. Describing the US-Bahrain FTA as "a comprehensive, high-quality agreement that will not only remove trade barriers, but expand regional opportunities for the peoples of both countries", Donnelly said that it would enhance commercial relations with the Gulf and "set the stage for improving trade relations and expanding openness with other countries in the region, and thereby creating prosperity, opportunity, and hope". The US official dismissed concerns by the Labor Advisory Committee, saying that the Bahrain-US FTA "fully meets the Trade Act of 2002" and that "the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions General Secretary has publicly hailed Bahrain as showing the way for the region".
He said that "the disciplines and consultative mechanism in the FTA will play a major role in further improving the labour situation in Bahrain."
Recently, US Democrats pressed Bahrain to change its labour laws to bring them up to international standards.
Rep. Ben Cardin cited a ban on workers in the same company forming more than one union, vague laws regarding penalties for anti-union discrimination, the ability of companies to withhold foreign workers’ salaries for up to three months, and onerous requirements on unions for calling strikes.
Donnelly however said that "with the passage of its 2002 Workers Trade Union Law, Bahrain now has labour laws that give effect to the principles and rights set forth in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The 2002 law now allows workers, including foreign workers, to form and join trade unions."
Testimonies presented at the US Senate Finance Committee hearing of 6 October 2005 on the US-Bahrain FTA are available online here.
