Need to activate role of private sector

The Consultative Commission of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Supreme Council is the most important among GCC organisations. The commission's structure gains its significance from being formed of equal members from Gulf states.

It has 30 members, five from each member state, chosen according to their experience and qualifications.

It consists of businessmen, academicians, former officials and technocrats. This makes the commission qualified to play a distinguished role in studying and examining many aspects of cooperation and coordination between GCC countries.

During its regular meetings, the commission addresses several important issues and topics that serve the interests of GCC nations and people. It is directly engaged in the issues of Gulf societies.

Among those issues is the transfer of expatriate workers between Gulf states and allowing them to subscribe to pension and social security funds. The commission made amendments to the draft resolution before its issuance by the GCC, which is considered a great step towards unifying the Gulf labour market.

The development of the private sector's role in GCC countries is another issue studied well by the commission, since major structural changes in GCC economies have taken place after three decades of rapid development. The most important of these changes were related to the oil industry, developing advanced infrastructures and the nature, role and activities of the private sector in GCC countries, which was confined to trade until the mid 1970's. The activities carried out by the private sector currently are various and include several economic sectors besides commerce, such as the financial, industrial, service, communications and transportation sectors.

The private sector's activities became a key factor of GCC economies, which have for four decades mainly relied on the cash pumped by the state through the yearly budget, which in turn relies on oil revenues.

Members of the consultative commission had this picture in mind when they discussed the development of the private sector's role, and submitted their suggestions. The application of these suggestions, however, needs structural economic changes, which in turn requires changing some laws and regulations that have created dividers between the activities of the public and private sectors.

Meanwhile, cooperation and coordination between GCC businessmen was growing, following the decisions taken in the past decade, which facilitated the transfer of investment and capitals between Gulf states. However, structural changes suggested by the commission still need some time.

The call of business representatives in the commission to activate the role of the private sector in development is not sufficient, but it stems from economic circumstances, and is in line with the joint economic agreement.

The commission's role so far has been confined to studying issues on its agenda and presenting its concept about them, upon request from the Supreme Council. This means that the commission does not follow up the implementation process after the council approves its recommendations and passes them on to executive bodies and authorities,

The commission's decisions must be given a priority, and any rules that contradict these decisions need to be amended.

The commission's participation in cabinet meetings may help it in closely studying the difficulties that hinder the implementation of its recommendation, in order to iron out such difficulties and benefiting from them in making its future recommendations.

The writer is a UAE economic expert.