The Ministerial extraordinary meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the Arab League started yesterday to prepare the draft agenda for the Fourth Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, which will be held in Lebanon next month.
The State of Qatar took part in the meeting with a delegation headed by H E Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the Arab League, Ambassador Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al Sahlawi.
The draft agenda of the meeting, to be chaired by Iraq, comprises 23 items, the most important of which is the Secretary-General’s report on the Arab joint action in the field of economic and social development and a report on the follow-up to the implementation of the previous resolutions taken at the 2013 Riyadh Summit and a special annex to the periodic convening of the Arab Summit for Development on the basis of a decision of the Economic and Social Council.
The draft agenda also includes an item on Arab food security, including the Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir’s initiative on Arab food security, the Arab food security emergency program, integration and trade in agricultural and plant crops, and livestock products in the Arab region.
Participants in the meeting will also discuss an item on the developments of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area and the completion of the requirements for the establishment of the Arab Customs Union, the Arab Charter for the Development of the SME sector and other sectors, including energy.
