Manama: A Bahraini parliamentary delegation has called for adding Arabic to the three official languages used by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
MP Abdul Halim Murad, from the lower chamber of the bicameral parliament, and Ahmad Ebrahim Bahzad, from the upper chamber, made the request at the Parliamentary Conference of the global world body in the Indonesian capital Bali on Monday, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.
English, French and Spanish are the languages that WTO uses for translations and interpretations and for official documents.
The request for the adoption of Arabic was reportedly supported by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco.
Arabic, spoken in more than 20 countries, is one of the six official languages used at the United Nations. Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the other languages.
The six languages are used at meetings of various UN organs, particularly the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the Security Council.
They are also used for the dissemination of official documents and no document is published until it is made available in all six official languages.
The United Nations Secretariat uses English and French as the two working languages.
