Egypt, six years after becoming a member of the World Trade Organization is running against the harsh reality of the organization's rules and structure, leading Egyptians said Saturday, November 3.
An official in the Economics Ministry, Ahmed Ghoneim, said that Egypt's experience so far was that developed countries were not sticking to the rules when they benefited developing countries.
"For example members were meant to cut by 26 percent their restrictions on the importation of textiles by 2001," he said. "In reality the United States has cut its restrictions by 1.7 percent, the European Union 6.0 percent and Canada 9.8 percent."
Egypt is a major exporter of cotton and textiles. Another area of concern is intellectual property rights, said Mona Al-Gorf, Professor of Economics at the University of Cairo, which, she said, discriminated against developing countries. She said this was particularly true for medicines, where patent rights meant that they were 10 times more expensive than they would otherwise be.
Children's rights are another source of friction said economics expert at the University of Cairo Gouda Abdel Khalek. Nearly 45 percent of Egypt's 66.5 million inhabitants are under the age of 15. Khalek said this made it difficult to apply WTO rules that restrict children from working.
"It is fine in principle but does not take into account social and economic reality when children work to help their family," he said. Official figures state that over two million children aged between six and 12 years old work in Egypt. — (AFP, Cairo)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
