BEIRUT, March 23: Arab finance and economy ministers on Saturday kicked off preparations for next week’s Arab summit with a call for greater efforts to face the economic challenge posed by Israel.

Lebanese Economy Minister Basil Fuleihan told envoys from the 22-member political grouping that the region faced renewed global challenges and increased competition since the events of September 11.

“Our biggest challenge is in our continued struggle with our Israeli enemy,” Fuleihan said.

“Our struggle with Israel is not just a military, political, ideological struggle, but an economic struggle to reach European and world markets and to draw in international investment,” Fuleihan said.

Israel boasts one of the highest annual per capita incomes in the region, reaching $16,310 in 1999, compared with $360 in Yemen, the poorest Arab state, according to the latest World Bank figures.

At the opening session of the economy ministers’ proceedings there was no mention of the prime focus of next week’s summit on a Saudi-initiated proposal to exchange “full normalisation” of ties with Israel in return for a full withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa asked the envoys to hand in progress reports on long-discussed proposals like a free trade area and a single Arab electrical grid for consideration at the March 27-28 summit.

A bid to create an Arab free trade area by 2005 must be expedited by cutting back on non-tariff trade barriers, Fuleihan told his counter-parts.

He also called for the liberalization of trade in services between Arab countries, “especially since several Arab nations have agreed on freer terms with non-Arab nations.”

The Arab League plans to hold its first Arab Economic Summit June 16-19. The meeting would exclude Israel, which joined a series of Middle East economic summits in the mid-1990s.—Reuters