Dubai, an empire of legalizing smuggling

Ministry of Commerce has prepared a new review of the negative list of goods that are imported from the largest Arab region of Free Trade, as the application will be launched by the beginning of October.

Algerian government’s decision will include 95 goods that will be appended to the current negative list consisting of 1260 products that were applied since April 2012.

 Products’ List (subject to tariff) that Algeria imports from Arab countries for the free exchange includes 5900 products, including 4784 products in the positive list that benefit from the tariff of concessions for the agreement.

Agreement between the Arab countries aims to protect certain products and sectors of activity that are threatened by free trade, as the term of protection should not exceed 3 to 4 years at the latest.

Period that was allowed for Algeria, since its entry into the Arab region’s free trade in January 2009, will expire in December for preparing the negative lists.

Algeria asked for the incorporation rates in the range of 70% for the classification of goods that are made in Arab countries within the Arab region for free exchange.

New list has been prepared in accordance with the standards that were established by the Arab League after the approval of the Committee for implementation and follow-up of the Economic and Social Council of the Arab League.

New negative list includes gold imported from the Arab region for free trade because of the growing phenomenon of smuggling gold from Dubai to Algeria through Tunisia and Libya.

Algeria imports 90% of its gold from the United Arab Emirates.

Usually gold trade is used for smuggling foreign exchange towards international banks, as the quantities and prices are manipulated by Algerian traders.