Identifying the commander amongst the mishmash of uniforms that made up the southern rebel army during the years of Sudan’s vicious North-South war was easiest done by finding the man with a large grey and black Thuraya satellite telephone in his hand.

A North-South peace deal in 2005 ended the war and allowed for a semi-autonomous southern Sudanese government headed up by the former rebel party. The same army elite are now ministers and governors; internationally recognized as in charge of the vast wilderness of the South and the garrison towns that formerly eluded them.

The Thurayas were indispensable, not only for military communication in the bush but also to mark sites with GPS coordinates. A +88216 number for the UAE company phones is still usual on government business cards. Although satellite telephones are rarely switched on in towns and have no reception inside the new offices, this is not just a war time throwback.

Despite the fast growth of the indigenous mobile phone operator Gemtel, connected through neighboring Uganda, and the much slower spread of Khartoum-based companies, outside of some eight main southern towns officials and humanitarian workers are again dependent on the dollar-a-minute Thurayas.

The satellite phone still rules southern Sudan’s communication network. Without one, vital work from drilling boreholes to building health centers can be delayed for months while workers sit in the field without spare parts.

But now, after some political wrangling, the government is spending millions of dollars to better the environment for mobile operators to change this and bring the war-torn South on line, to link people to each other and into the regional economy.

Rebel licenses

The southern government has said it is committed to ensuring that all operators move out further than just urban areas and provide mobile services to all southerners.

But it hasn’t always encouraged some of the companies to work at all.

Under the peace deal only six operators — four signed on by Khartoum and two by the southern rebels — are allowed to work in Sudan, all of which had pre-existing contracts. Until 2010, also under the deal, they will have no new competition.

While in the bush, the rebels signed Gemtel and NOW (Network of the World) to work in what the contracts called “New Sudan”. The term was made famous by Dr John Garang who led the southern movement until he died in a helicopter crash in 2005.

He knew most southerners wanted independence from Khartoum but he saw the whole of Sudan change by the movement’s efforts into a secular, democratic and decentralized state.

But the southern government was told that the two new networks — very little more than names at the time — would not be allowed to operate outside of the South. The southern telecommunications minister, Maj. Gen. Gier Chuang Aluong, said this was because Khartoum viewed ‘New Sudan’ licenses to mean they are only applicable for the South.

A census began on April 22, 2008, to discover the true southern population but it is already clear the North has up to three times as many people as the South — currently estimated to be around 10 million — more cash and a much better fiber-optic system for operators than the South — dependent on satellite dishes — can offer.

The former rebels wanted their companies to have access to the whole Sudanese market. Thus, a row ensured, about which Aluong said that until Khartoum allows access northwards for the southern-signed companies, he would disallow the four North-signed companies from operating on his turf.

The one low-capacity station in  Juba, owned by Khartoum’s Mobitel was not allowed to expand. Another North-signed company already working in the South, Sudatel with its Sudani network, was labeled ‘illegal’ by ministry officials. Both systems were almost unusable.

New growth

But a memorandum of understanding signed last year between the two former foes — in Khartoum’s favor — has meant the four Khartoum-signed companies now have the go-ahead to move into the South.

These four — that also include Areeba and Canatel – have already begun surveying new areas, the Southern Sudan Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Services Undersecretary Juma Stephen said.

This should please Juba residents. Already, those who can afford it usually carry around at least two mobile phones, one with a Gemtel SIM and another one with a Sudani SIM card.

Both networks are frequently busy and everyone has become used to being cut off mid-conversation and paying for long periods of useless fuzz. “When there are more operators, there will be less congestion,” said Sudani’s Juba manager, Nyero Felix Peter.

Encouraged by the political agreement Sudani has recently opened three new base terminal stations (BSM) that are the reason for the network’s vast – if not perfect — improvement, Peter said. “In order to improve our technology, we needed the freedom to expand horizontally,” he explained.

Sudani, like Mobitel, is still using Khartoum’s gateway for international calls and its switch — the mechanism that sends a call from one phone to another. Because calls have to travel from a Juba BSM to a Juba satellite dish, then to a Khartoum satellite dish, then to the Khartoum switch to, finally, be sent back to Juba — via the same satellite route, but in reverse — calls typically take up to ten seconds to connect.

But the southern government, keen to be able to monitor their own calls and hoping to start generating income, is building its own gateway and switch. Contracted last year, Swedish Ericsson will complete the job by October 2008, Stephen said, and money for the total cost of the project, $17 million, has already been set aside by the government.

“It will be better. At the moment, using Khartoum there is a big wastage of the network,” Peter said. He also pointed out that at the moment the government cannot know how much traffic is going on in the South.

“With the gateway we will bring back money to the government,” Stephen said, noting “operators will pay to their government 2.5% of their traffic revenues generated in southern Sudan.” Under last year’s MOU, the South and the North will be allowed different numbering for international calls — probably +2491 for one and +2492 for the other.

Protecting their own

The appearance of southern Sudan’s Gemtel SIM cards on the market was one of the few major signs of new development in 2006. Some people talked to family members in neighboring countries for the first time in 15 years. UN and non-governmental agencies reduced their dependence on radio communication within the town. Traders could reach and affordably talk to partners in Uganda and Kenya.

The South had entered into an agreement with neighboring Uganda to rent out its gateway at $50,000 a month for the company and the phones will continue to use the Ugandan international numbering +256, and not Sudan’s +249, until the South’s own gateway takes over the job. Officials say that, once this is accomplished, it should dramatically reduce costs for customers.

Created in 2003 through an agreement with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. — China’s largest telecoms equipment company – and the rebel leaders, Gemtel already had 23,000 subscribers by June 2007 although, because the SIM cards are sold through the black market, exact numbers are impossible to come by.

The government still owns part of the company and is trying to buy off the equipment from the Chinese enterprise including the satellite dish that is based there, Juma said.

But Gemtel proved to be too much of a good thing. A scarcity of SIM cards drove prices up as high as $200 per piece. Announcements of new stocks to be sold led to massive queues and many disappointed in the crowds as often the bulk would already be taken by huge government pre-orders.

Normal civilians began to purchase the cards in much smaller towns hours down the road, and then brought them back to the capital. Even as more and more towns come online, overcrowding in the capital has steadily reduced the quality.

One of the reasons the South wanted access to northern Sudan for its two indigenous networks, is so it could more easily sell the currently un-operating NOW — owned by private investors outside of Sudan and members of the former rebel party – to foreign investors. The sale of the network is now halfway done, ministry officials said.

Although the southern government did not win access to northern Sudan for Gemtel and NOW in negotiations, they did win more control. Under the MOU the South will get a branch of the regulating National Telecommunication Corporation in Juba. This will allow the southern government to protect the head start Gemtel has made in the South against its northern competitors.

“We will establish a regional branch here and we can regulate costs and tariffs,” said Juma Stephen, explaining the southern companies need protection from the northern companies. “Those operators are already established in the market. Gemtel is still an infant, growing up.”

Does American education remain the most popular choice for universities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region? Recently, rumors circulated that Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI), Morocco switched from the traditional American model of education to the French system of tertiary learning. The rumors seemed counter intuitive during a time when the whole world, including the MENA region, is shifting to the American style of higher education which, in addition to the usage of English as the primary language of instruction and research, focuses on creative thinking and problem solving instead of rote memorization.

Rethinking the American model of education would have not only been counter to popular notions of higher education but would have affected the foundations on which AUI is based. Located in a country desperate for efficient human capital, any move by AUI away from the American model would have brought into question the effectiveness of the school in developing the country’s next generation of leaders.

Founded in 1993 with a large endowment from Saudi Arabia to Morocco to aid an oil spill that was never realized on the country’s coasts, AUI represented a move in international diplomacy between the “two brothers”, a namesake which currently adorns the university and acts as a tribute to the then kings of each country – King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Morocco’s King Hassan II. Nestled in the mountainous village of Ifrane, AUI is the articulation of the late King Hassan II’s vision to create a university based on the American style of education.

In the institution’s bylaws, which were signed by Morocco’s king, it is made “very clear that it’s an institution where English is the official teaching and research language,” according to AUI’s President and former Minister of Education Rachid Benmokhtar Benabdallah. He also believes AUI “is an institution built on the American model of education and American standards of education and all of the associated criteria. The laws are clear and are there, so we cannot change them”. In an interview with Executive he dispelled the rumors, noting that “nothing changed at the university level.”

Trilingual brothers

The source of confusion came from a shift in the direction of AUI’s primary and secondary schools. Families in Ifrane who send their children to AUI’s primary and secondary schools are having trouble coping financially and logistically with their physical move from the isolated town or in cases where students transfer to other schools.

What were once American system schools under AUI’s direction are now international schools. “For the Moroccans”, according to President Benabdallah, “we have a problem with the primary and secondary schooling and the problem is that if the students attend then they will only learn English, but what happens if they have to go elsewhere, if they move to another city, or if they switch schools? They will not find another school on the costs side which is affordable for them.”

He believes that the other American schools in Morocco are very expensive and people do not have the means to pay the yearly fees of $13,500-16,000, meaning that if AUI’s primary and secondary schools remain purely American, the service offered will essentially be for the international community and not Moroccans. Hence, a university-wide discussion was started and the solution found was to convert the pre-university education into an international school.

The new ‘international school’ will have three languages: French, English, and Arabic. In searching for a new management team for the school, AUI had two options, but chose an international school instead of running the school under the international baccalaureate mandate, because the latter “gives you just the rules, what you should do, and they come for evaluation, assessment, and so on, but they don’t manage the school, so it remained a problem”, according to AUI’s president.

After negotiating with a French organization, AUI’s leadership found a solution by changing to an international school with courses in French, but with six hours of English weekly, and three hours of Arabic, which can be expanded to six hours a week of Arabic for Moroccans. The mix of languages will help students master all three to become tri-lingual before university, but the added benefit will give the families of students more flexibility when they head elsewhere in Morocco.

In addition to the change in instruction in the primary and secondary schools, according to Abdessamad Fatmi, the school’s Director of Communication, further confusion came from an AUI-commissioned study on the ways to improve the university. As with many third-party studies, the product provided several options, including switching AUI to the French system, yet the school did not follow the advice.

Encouraging English

As Fatmi pointed out, at the university level the attention to educate in English will be maintained since “we are in the process of evolving as a university as we are growing to make sure that our students master the language, which is very important, and the reason is that they can pass the Testing of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam, and that we ensure that at the end of study they pass another test for professional English before leaving campus.”

In the end, Benabdallah maintains that “nothing changed and we will stay the way we are as the Moroccan university under the American model of education.”

By promoting the right infrastructure development a country might attract capital from foreign firms looking to move the production of goods and services overseas. For Morocco, developing sites for foreign companies to conduct their operations overseas is part of a wider movement across francophone North Africa.

As countries like Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia diversify their means to attract foreign capital by encouraging the growth of market-based competition, they are increasingly aware of their valuable position denoted by a common language, which unites them with Europe as well as their close proximity to the continent. While European firms look to stay competitive on international markets, many are choosing to delegate their business processes overseas.

Further slides in the US Dollar are making dollar-denominated economies more competitive on international markets as the factors of production are relatively cheaper against the more expensive euro and other currencies not pegged to the greenback. A continued fall in the dollar will likely serve as an impetus for European firms to ‘offshore’ a portion of their business to North Africa to cut costs and remain competitive.

Morocco develops its offshore industry

For Morocco, developing infrastructure to host offshoring sites is part of the wider 2005 Emergence Plan aimed at deriving the economic benefits from a burgeoning offshoring industry. Through developing a successful offshore industry, the kingdom calculates that more capital and workforce in the country will increase gross domestic product (GDP) by $12.3 billion while at the same time creating nearly 440,000 jobs and slashing its trade deficit in half.

One such offshoring site the kingdom developed is Casablanca’s NearShore Park, which opened its doors at the end of 2007 and currently hosts such companies as BNP Paribas, Dell, and Tata Consulting for a total occupancy rate of 100% within its 57,000 square meters. Other parts of the park are also being constructed and businesses continue to fill them up at the park’s price of $12 per square meter, taxes included.

According to NearShore Park’s management “we do not have a [single] local standard. We are working with our customers on the final version of the product.” Confident in the industry’s future in Morocco, another 200,000 square meters are planned over the next two years while an additional 350,000 square meters are set for construction through 2011. Atos Origin, Novedia Group, and Novative already expressed interest in the park as an offshore location for future operations.

Moroccan officials are trying to use Casablanca’s strengths to the city’s advantage, which have currently placed the economic capital in the “top 5 most popular offshore destinations in the world, according to a study conducted on 37 foreign cities,” said Mohamed Lasry, CEO of NearShore Park. Other contenders for Europe’s offshore operations include Prague, Czech Republic, and Sofia, Bulgaria, where low manufacturing costs, coupled with policies aimed at harnessing foreign direct investment (FDI) encourage the development of industry for many Western European firms looking to cut costs.

To compete with others, including the very popular Asian outsourcing hubs in India, Southeast Asia and China, Morocco is still preparing its workforce to match the same number and degree of talents in their pool of human resources, including training engineers and other experts in information and communication technology.

According to Mohamed Kabbah, Governor of Casablanca, the NearShore Park “is an incentive for getting Moroccan engineers abroad to come and work in Morocco.” The NearShore Park is also associating itself with institutions of tertiary learning, including universities and vocational schools to harness the talent still left in Morocco as “Morocco is fighting for its place in the knowledge economy,” according to Kabbah.

The advantages to a firm situating itself in the NearShore Park include office facilities held up to international standards as well as a private telecom loop run by Maroc Telecom within the park, at prices cheaper than those offered to consumers elsewhere. Public transport plans to offer connections are in the works and NearShore’s chief operating officer Joseph Hoffman promises no less than five bus lines through the park with a bus coming every two minutes.

Casablanca is not alone

While Casablanca might be aiming to become the biggest, it is certainly not the only Moroccan spot for Europe’s offshoring industry. The country’s political capital Rabat has begun its own Technopolis with a first phase completion date of June 2008 and a $58 million price tag. The remaining construction will hopefully be completed by 2015 for a cost of $500 million. The Technopolis aims to attract talent to serve as an arena for software support.

With the aim to build its technology industry as one driver of human capital development, Rabat has welcomed ST Microelectronics who installed a microchip design research and development (R&D) site for 180 engineers at a price of $13.6 million. With a focus on hardware design, clients include the American giant Texas Instruments.

The challenges of Morocco succeeding in attracting international firms is partly based on exogenous market factors, including currency movements, but the country’s success is also largely on par with Morocco’s own challenges of developing human capital. The country will continue its efforts to develop an economic environment favorable to industry and competitive against regional rivals such as Algeria and Tunisia who have thrown their hat in the race and are pursuing their own plans to create hubs for service sectors and R&D.

Algeria’s accession to the world economy is moving forward with a surprising amount of support from the North African country’s Arab and European neighbors. In the past decade, the country integrated slower than its neighbors and was surpassed by both Morocco and Tunisia, who acceded to several trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and multilateral trade accords with Arab neighbors.

Despite a long history of being stalled under the country’s socialist-oriented economic policies, Algeria’s economy finally began to show promise when it began talks to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1998. Ten years later, Algeria is still not a member, while Morocco and Tunisia have benefited since their accessions in 1995 by using the organization as a platform and mechanism for their continued liberalization and privatization plans.

Governments and businesses with connections to Algeria are poised on the sidelines as the country is set to finally join the plethora of other members during the second half of 2008.

A successful accession to the WTO is not by any means the final step on the path to liberalization, but it certainly is indicative of prior progress and future cooperation of the government with others in the global trading order. However, not all news of Algeria’s accession is positive and the country is attracting criticism from officials for not moving fast enough in key industries such as energy and services, where government reform plans are not satisfying the appetite of the world’s economies.

Regional connections

Like the many developing countries before it, Algeria’s progression towards the WTO began through a series of moves aimed at integrating the country’s economy with regional groups through regulatory and trade policies. Most WTO-aspirants follow the formula of increasing bilateral and multilateral trade with proven partners. Doing this helps the state create trade norms and learn to deal with more competitive markets. Understanding these norms and establishing trade policies on a small level helps the country manage tariffs and other protectionist measures to maintain a solid pace to improve and develop.

In the past decade, Algeria established connections with its Arab and European neighbors. For Algeria-EU relations, the success was attributed to the idea “that trade and economic integration helps to strengthen competitiveness and better face the remaining competition from other economies,” according to the European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Neighbors in the Maghreb

For Algeria, proof of the country’s growth in regional trade is found in its burgeoning trade relationship with Morocco, its immediate neighbor to the west, but one with which it still shares tense relations regarding territorial disputes. The rise of Algeria-Morocco trade includes a year-on-year growth of 13.5% for Moroccan exports to Algeria, but more impressive is the astounding growth of Algerian exports to Morocco: 26.9% in 2006. The growth is attributed mostly to price increases in Algerian natural resource commodities, including the export of natural gas.

In the future, Algeria will need to depend on fellow members of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), especially Morocco and Tunisia, to service and govern parts of the two natural gas pipelines that connect Algeria’s main exports of natural gas, amounting to 98% of total exports, to its European markets. Tunisia will continue to oversee the Trans-Mediterranean (Transmed) pipeline from Algeria to Sicily, while Morocco remains part of the consortium controlling the Maghreb-Europe Gas (MEP) pipeline.

Liberalization via the WTO route is likely to foster better economic diversification, shying away from the natural gas industry as a main export driver, to include operations in services, research, and manufacturing, all of which are likely to be determined through relationships formed by Algeria under the WTO umbrella.

Many pundits consider the AMU defunct, which is why any analysis of the institution is given in small doses, since it seeks to formalize and bond a North Africa that to a large extent remains disconnected.

Going forward, the country’s WTO membership will most likely promote adhesion between AMU members and can serve as an impetus for more formalized applications of the idea behind the AMU. This model would be unique in that countries first regionalize and then globalize, but in Algeria’s experience, integrating with the WTO will bring it more formal results than its ties to the AMU.

In fact, Morocco voiced its support in January. Although the country remains a regional rival of Algeria and the land border between the two has been closed since 1994, Morocco expressed its support for Algeria’s accession plans. The ongoing dispute between the two countries — regarding the territory of the Western Sahara and the secessionist Polisario Front — has not has not interfered significantly  with their mutual desire to integrate their economies and those of the all the AMU states.

According to Mohammed Loulichki, Morocco’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, “The adhesion of Algeria to the World Trade Organization will reinforce the presence of the countries of the Arab Maghreb Union at the heart of the WTO, will ameliorate the economic and commercial interaction between its members and will permit them to contribute more to the rapid development of world trade.”

Arab investment in Algeria

However, in addition to increased trade movements to immediate Maghreb neighbors, Algeria’s connections with other Arab countries are likely to be cemented by the country’s WTO-accession plans. Algeria has been attracting a lot of business and investment from many Arab countries. Between 2001 and 2007, foreign direct investment (FDI) from Arab countries to Algeria jumped by $7 billion.

Looking forward to the next two years, Arab-Algeria investment flows will hit $19 billion, of which “90% was already approved by the government,” according to Djamel Zeriguine, Algeria’s Division Chief of the Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment. These $19 billion are destined to finance projects in downstream industries dependent on natural resources, including aluminum, cement, and other construction materials, but the money will also develop social infrastructure in health care as well as the tourism and hotel industries.

Such flows are likely to spillover into nascent industries such as research and development, as well as manufacturing, as the government moves forward with increasing private enterprises, encouraged by fellow WTO members during Algeria’s accession talks.

Selling Algeria’s geo-economic benefits

Europe is equally as encouraging of Algeria’s WTO accession plans as the country’s other Arab counterparts. For Europe, Algeria offers a host of potential for import diversification and strategic partnership. Although manufacturing and research sectors are piquing the interest of European firms, Algeria is likely to primarily remain a hedge in the short term against disruptions to Europe’s energy supplies. For Algeria, connecting with the EU offers it a chance to continue to privatize, liberalize, and economize.

The partnership is a matter of EU geo-economic security and a hedge against disruption of the continent’s energy supplies. Undoubtedly, Europe is looking to source petroleum supplies from several different entities since Russia first pulled the plug on its feed in 2005, demanding higher prices without a moment’s warning.

Further integration to the WTO trading order will help strengthen the relationship and interdependence of the two economies: for Europe, a liberalized Algeria will offer the hedge they are seeking while Algeria will benefit in the long run from increased competition and the most-favored-nation (MFN) status it will enjoy as a co-WTO member. Ferrero-Waldner believes that Algeria “is already an important energy partner for the EU,” citing the country’s status as third largest energy supplier to the Union.

She further indicated that “several gas transportation projects are already underway that will in the close future significantly increase Algerian supplies to the EU.” Other plans, such as a strategic energy partnership between the EU and Algeria that will enhance the EU-Algeria energy relationship are also in the planning stage.

Whether or not the EU’s courting of its gas-rich southern neighbor as a hedge against Russia’s geo-political maneuvering — through tampering with the EU’s gas supplies — will result in the establishment of a wider array of relations with Algeria, what is clear is that Europe is one of Algeria’s most fervent supporters for WTO accession.

The three year relationship Algeria has had with the EU is mainly attributed to the 2005 Association Agreement, through which Ferrero-Waldner believes “good progress has been reached so far, namely through the implementation of the tariff dismantling according to the planned schedule.” She holds that the Association Agreement in general is a “bonus for the domestic economy by generating new trade opportunities and increasing foreign direct investment.”

Philippe de Fontaine Vive Curtaz, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), concurs with this positive picture and added that Algeria’s reforms have “improved the investment climate” of the country. Algeria’s reforms — which place the highest priority on privatization of public entities and restructuring certain infrastructure sectors like telecommunications and energy — are likely to be fostered with WTO membership.

Curtaz indicated that in February 2008 Algeria and the EIB signed partnership agreements aimed at the development of two reformed sectors, the private sector and the financial sector. To this end, the EIB, which manages the Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership Facility (EMIPF), in 2007 gave nine southern Mediterranean countries $2.16 billion, of which 68% is for its private sector. Since the first aid package in 1980, the EIB has given a total of $3.4 billion to Algeria for the development of its private sector.

Deeper and faster reforms

However, not all news from Europe has been rosy. In fact, during a February 2008 visit to Algeria, European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said that Algeria was “too late to allow a timid attitude” towards advancing commercial reforms. He expressed his dissatisfaction as to the current application of the Association Agreement, which outlines the reforms Algeria must take to integrate its economy with those of EU member states. To this end Mandelson said that “it will be necessary to look for a new partnership agreement before 2010 to improve commercial conditions.”

Touching upon the EU’s bilateral market access negotiations, which constitute part of Algeria’s WTO accession plan as members can negotiation regulations bilaterally, the EU trade official believed further improvements had to be made in trading energy and services, which remains a tough international issue as Algeria’s energy price is more expensive on international markets. However, Mandelson thought progress had been made on energy pricing and the two bodies are now in “the phase of final clarifications,” although the issue of liberalizing services remained untouched. The commissioner refuted suggestions that the EU was contributing to the postponements in Algeria’s WTO accession talks, indicating that other WTO members also had concerns.

The meaning of a WTO Algeria

Beyond being a mere indicator of economic liberalization, the WTO label carriers with it several ties which will bind Algeria to the global trading order. The most important of the WTO standards is the group’s most-favored-nation (MFN) status, which applies to all WTO members by guaranteeing them the most advantageous terms of trade with any other WTO members.

For Algeria, the MFN status would mean increasingly favorable treatment of exports to its main trading partners, like the EU, and in particular the country’s top six bilateral trading partners — the United States, Italy, Spain, France, Canada, and Belgium — all of which are WTO members.

On the import side, Algeria need not worry as the country is enjoying a positive trade balance of $37.22 billion in 2007, largely attributed to the country’s extensive reliance on its hydrocarbons sector, which dominates 98% of exports and whose price rises in oil and gas is the reason for the country exporting twice as much in dollar value as it imports.

However, foreign investors will take note of the MFN application to their exports to Algeria as a market in which the country can spend its foreign exchange earnings. Algeria’s other industrialists are likely to move on the WTO green light as the county explores economic liberalization and diversification from its reliance on natural resources.

The country will also benefit from the WTO’s technical assistance for developing countries. According to the organization, the benchmarks set for less-developed economies are usually met with success through the group’s technical assistance and cooperation as markets move from command-based to market-based. The WTO experiences of its neighbors Morocco and Tunisia seem to show a marked amount of success, although significant challenges remain in both economies.

Indirectly, Algeria’s WTO accession is likely to help the country’s trade relationship with the further integration of the AMU, in addition to the country’s trade relationship with the EU. According to Ferrero-Waldner, the EU is trying to help Algeria “embark on negotiations on services, on trade in processed agricultural and fisheries products and on industrial standards and conformity assessment.”

She believes that together “these new negotiations could be effective drivers for speeding up internal market reforms, enhancing the diversification of Algeria’s exports and deepening bilateral trade cooperation.”

Next stop, the World

According to El Hachemi Djaaboub, Algeria’s Minister of Commerce, 31 of 35 countries involved in Algeria’s accession talks with the WTO “officially” expressed their wish for Algeria’s rapid accession. He continued “The option to adhere is irreversible … the laws of the republic conform to international expectations; there is no discrimination between nationals and foreigners, nor oral rules nor recourse to tariff barriers in which the consolidation came back to 2000.”

Further integration into the WTO order is unlikely to damage other international relationships, as other countries’ experiences have shown. According to Ferrero-Waldner, “the EU has constantly expressed its support to Algeria’s integration in the multilateral trading system and the world economy as a necessary condition for its further development. WTO accession remains the top priority for Algeria. The EU welcomed recent progress and improvements on main key trade priorities in discussions in WTO both on bilateral and multilateral levels.”