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The 2nd Joint Trade Policy Review of the East African Community November 21 & 23, 2012
Statement by the Republic of Korea Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We would like to begin by extending our warmest welcome to the delegation of the EAC for its second joint trade policy review. We would also like to express our appreciation to Ambassador Tom Mboya Okeyo for his comprehensive presentation of the EAC’s economic performance and trade policies during the period under review. Our thanks also go to Ambassador YI Xiaozhun of China for his insightful observations and comments as a discussant and to the Secretariat for its comprehensive and informative report.
Mr. Chairman, we are pleased to note that the EAC countries and Korea have been steadily expanding cooperation in the fields of trade, investment and development assistance. Broadening partnership with African countries continues to be one of Korea’s foreign policy priorities. In this vein, we are also very pleased to note that the African Union and Korea discussed progress to date as well as concrete ways to further enhance mutual cooperation at the third Korea-Africa Forum held in Seoul last month. We very much hope and expect that our cooperative relations will be further reinforced based on these and other initiatives between Africa and Korea.
Turning to the EAC’s overall economic performance, we welcome the recent positive developments in the EAC countries including the fact that they are recovering relatively well from the global economic crisis mainly thanks to good performance in agriculture and services sectors. We are interested in further hearing from the EAC on how it intends to address the current challenges it faces such as low resilience, traditional farming practices, a narrow export base and low tourist arrivals, as the Secretariat report points out, as well as what role development assistance can play in more effectively helping the EAC countries overcome these constraints and achieve sustainable and robust growth.
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As far as the EAC's trade policies and practices are concerned, we would first like to recognize and praise its overall strong commitment to multilateral trading system. We note with pleasure that the EAC was expanded to include Burundi and Rwanda during the period under review and that further efforts have been made to deepen regional integration. We hope that the EAC countries will make the most of their regional integration to strengthen their competitiveness and better integrate into the global economy.
At the same time, we would like to encourage the EAC to continue to pursue structural reforms, further trade liberalization and improvement of the investment climate in a more coordinated manner, in order to achieve a full EAC customs union and successful economic integration. Furthermore, overlapping membership of the EAC countries in two or more regional economic communities also needs to be addressed to cope with the difficulties brought about by the differences in rules of origin and intra-regional trade liberalization mechanisms under the various agreements, as the Secretariat report indicates.
We thank the EAC countries for providing answers to our advance written questions which Seoul will review carefully. We submitted additional questions to the Secretariat and expect to receive answers to them in due course as well.
Mr. Chairman, we would like to conclude by expressing our appreciation to the EAC countries, for their active participation in and contribution to the regular work of the WTO as well as the DDA negotiations. Once again, we thank the delegation of the EAC for their hard work in preparing for today’s meeting, and wish them a very successful TPR.
Thank you.
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