SHUNEH, Jordan (AFP) - The United States unveiled a "roadmap" to set up a US-Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013 that would bolster efforts to secure peace in the region and develop its resources.
A European official dismissed any negative impact of the plan on European Union (EU) trade, but called on his bloc to forge a more muscular and cohesive foreign policy to boost its own influence in the Middle East.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, underlined the "linkage" between efforts for Arab-Israeli peace and the economic development of the region through freer and fairer trade.
"We want peace in the region, with peace you need economic development or people will not benefit from peace," he said, on the last day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea.
Powell unveiled the ambitious trade plan as another page in Washington's vision for the Middle East since ousting Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in April.
The sentence "roadmap to MEFTA," or US-Middle East Free Trade Area, came in the speech delivered here by US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick as another reminder of the linkage.
The latest initiative drafted by the international community to establish peace in the Middle East is also known as the "roadmap."
Zoellick said the free trade area will be built "step by step", a gradual process that would end by combining states reaching bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with Washington into a single regional accord encompassing the Middle East and North Africa.
He listed a series of steps to help regional states conclude bilateral free trade accords with the United States, by joining the World Trade Organisation, the Generalised System of Preferences, Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) and Bilateral Investment Treaties.
Zoellick said the United States was ready to help Arab states reach this goal, including more than one billion dollars in annual aid.
"The Middle East Partnership Initiative will help target more than one billion dollars of annual funding from various US government agencies," he said.
The first US-Arab meeting on setting up MEFTA was held Monday and hosted by Jordan's King Abdullah II.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen attended the meeting, as well as from the Palestinian Authority and Arab League chief Amr Mussa.
The meeting was the first since June 3, when Bush called for the creation of a US-Middle East free trade area by 2013 as part of a bid to secure a "permanent" end to Arab-Israeli hostilities.
Zoellick urged Arabs "to seize the moment" presented by Bush's initiative, underlining the immediate advantages of an FTAs.
He said Jordan's exports expanded nearly 13 fold since this country signed an FTA in 2000, reaching 389 millions dollars last year.
He said oil continued to make up for the bulk of Arab states' exports and they were "falling behind in global trade," reducing their chances to attract foreign investments.
According to the United Nations, the Middle East attracted just 0.7 percent of global foreign direct investment throughout the 1990s.
The United States has already FTAs with Jordan and Israel, and TIFAs with Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.
Zoellick said Washington hoped "to conclude the negotiations" on an FTA with Morocco by the end of this year, and was willing to assist Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria and Yemen becoming WTO members.
But he said the US offer is limited to "peaceful countries in the region," hinting that it did not extend to Syria, Libya and Sudan, which are also seeking WTO membership but are blacklisted by Washington for their alleged support for terrorism.
EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy told AFP that MEFTA was "somehow" an "incentive for us to be united on foreign policy as we are on commercial matters."
But he doubted Washington's blueprint for liberalising Middle East economies would have any negative commercial effect on European trade with the region.
He pointed out that Europe launched plans 15 years ago to create a Euro-Mediterranean free-zone area that should be completed in 2010.
"I think that if the Americans open more their market to these countries, it is good news; if they (the Middle East) open more their markets to the Americans, there is no problem since we will be the first," he said.
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