The First Arab Economic Summit concluded in Kuwait Tuesday afternoon, with adoption of resolutions on Gaza crisis and steps to promote Arab economic and social development.

The resolutions, read out by Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa at the summit's closing session, underscored the importance of reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip through a rehabilitation and construction program in coordination with the Palestinian National Authority.

According to the resolutions, Arab leaders called for continuing humanitarian assistance to Gazans suffering from three weeks of massive Israeli offensive, providing financial and technical support for the rehabilitation of infrastructure, health services, and improving living standards of Palestinians in the strip.

But the final resolutions did not mention a highly-expected Arab fund worth 2 billion U.S. dollars for the post-war reconstruction process of the Palestinian enclave.

Due to the Israeli offensive on the besieged Palestinian enclave that began on Dec. 27, 2008, the Gaza situation has dominated the two-day high-level economic meeting, attended by 17 Arab heads of state including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and AL chief Moussa.

The summit also issued resolutions on promoting Arab development and integration, including measures to improve transportation and electricity network, increase inter-Arab investment and establish the Arab custom union.

In the resolutions, Arab leaders agreed to speed up the electricity linkage project in the region and remove all obstacles facing the project in action.

They called for launching the trans-Arab railway line project in line with the plan placed by the Council of Arab Transport Ministers.

The resolutions urged for establishing the Arab custom union as of 2010, which will be fully operational by 2015, with a target to ultimately establish the common Arab market.

Arab leaders also called for establishing a foundation program of the Arab custom union, removing custom and non-custom barriers on Arab goods, preparing a list of specifications of Arab goods and continuing negotiations for the liberalization of trade services.

The Arab leaders pledged continuous support for the national financial institutions to contribute to stability of the global financial situation and called on Arab governors of central banks to coordinate policies to get out of the financial crisis.

They urged to accelerate the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Arab region.

Implementation mechanisms were approved to carry out the above resolutions.

The Kuwait summit was the first of its kind for the 22-member Arab League to exclusively devote to Arab economic, development and social matters.

The summit, under preparation for nearly two years, was decided by a resolution issued at the annual Arab summit in Riyadh in March 2007, as Arab leaders had found that Arab national security has been affected by the economic and social underdevelopment.

The leaders have agreed to hold the next economic summit in Egypt after two years though such a summit would not become a regular one according to the summit's general coordinator Mervat Tellawi.

Arab leaders agree to speed up electricity, railway linkage projects

Arab leaders called for speeding up the Arab electrical linkage project and launching the trans-Arab railway line project during a resolution issued at the closing session of the first Arab economic summit.

The Arab leaders agreed to speed up the electricity linkage project and remove all obstacles facing the project in action, said the resolution read out by Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.

As for the railway linkage system, they called for launching the project in line with the plan placed by the Council of Arab Transport Ministers and for member states to take steps to adapt their national legislations to remove all obstacles facing the completion of the project.

A multi-way electricity grid and a railway line linking 13 Arab countries aiming at greater economic and social integration have been on the agenda of Arab states for several years, but many high- level meetings on developing these interstate infrastructures have failed to yield concrete results.

In a bid to rewrite this trend, the Arab leaders voted for these projects considering their importance in the economic development of Arab countries, following the global downturn.  

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2009)