IOR-ARC concludes activities in Sana'a By: Mahmoud Assamiee

SANA'A, June, 25 (Saba)-The prolonged activities of Indian Ocean Rim
Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) commenced its
activities by holding the fifteenth meeting of IOR-ARC Academic
Group last Saturday.

The meeting started by preliminary meeting of the Movable
University (it is unreal university without no real location but
working on exchange experiences between universities of countries
overlooking the Indian Ocean). The meeting discussed issues related
to cultural cooperation between the member states.

The meeting of the group comprising of delegates from India,
Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Sultanate of Oman,
South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Yemen was chaired by Dr,
Charandasi from India.

The meeting discussed the past report of the group held in Islamic
Republic of Iran in 2008, amendments on the group's constitution,
academic issues, cooperation between member states, natural
disasters, marine transport, science and technology, protecting
environment and issues relating to Indian Ocean.

While the Fifteenth Meeting of IOR-ARC held on Tuesday. The meeting
discussed five topics started by academic system, businessmen's
forum, business group of trade and investment.

The meeting was chaired by Minister of Industry and Trade Yahya
al-Mutawakel who said Yemen has raised piracy issue to be discussed
in the association's agenda.

"The meeting has discussed difficulties and issues facing the region
among of them epidemics. Yemen wanted by chairing this meeting to
make use of role of small institutions to enhance economic growth,
limit poverty and employment and creating work opportunities," said
al-Mutawakel.

He said utilizing fishery wealth in the Ocean, investment and trade
and making use of encouraging investment between member countries
are highlighted in the meeting. "There are treaties signed to
encourage and protect investment."

Concerning piracy, al Mutawakel said sorrowfully this issue was not
highlighted despite existing warships in Indian Ocean and the Arab
Sea. "This problem does not only a threat to the immediate
neighboring countries to the Gulf of Aden but a direct problem for
all countries on the Indian Ocean rim," said al-Mutawakel.

He stated that the project of establishing a regional center for
exchanging information on piracy in Yemen has been aproved by
countries overlooking the Indian Ocean.

Over question on Yemen's benefit of holding this conference here ,
al-Mutawakel said the regional groupings come to enhance trade and
investment exchanging as well as limiting difficulties and obstacles
created by globalization given that all countries included in the
association are developing countries.

Meanwhile, IOR-ARC's Executive Director Murteza Sarmadi said these
meetings highlighted issues related to trade and investment. In this
context, we discussed how we can promote fisheries and how we can
promote cooperation between member states. We can start
implementation of some projects and create a momentum between member
states to become more involved in trade between them.

The 11th meeting of senior officials from the member states of the
Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC)
continued on Wednesday, with the participants discussing some
proposals and initiatives including a Yemeni initiative to set up a
regional maritime center, which will mainly contribute to combat
piracy off Somalia.

The participating delegations announced their countries' support for
Yemen's effort to tackle piracy, affirming the phenomenon is
threatening the interests of all countries.

The meeting, chaired by Yemen, also dealt with other proposals
including one suggesting that Foreign Ministers of the IOR-ARC meet
on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the United Nations General
Assembly in New York.

The second was that senior officials from the IOR-ARC hold a second
annual meeting ahead of the primary meeting.

The two proposals are aimed at enhancing the work of the
organization to achieve its goals for the interest of the member
states.

A sub-committee of finance of the IOR-ARC was raised at the meeting,
with the participating delegations confirming their approval for the
committee formation.

The committee comprises of Yemen, chair, and Iran, South Africa,
Tanzania, Kenya and the Republic of Mauritius as members.

The participants also dealt with the request of Philippines
concerning the accession to the association. They initially accepted
the request, which was submitted during Iran's chairmanship, but
they said Philippines should confirm its request.

In the meeting, the UAE delegation said their country is looking
forward to looking into a wish to establish a regional renewable
energy center in the United Arab Emirates.

All the proposals would be submitted the 9th meeting of Foreign
Ministers of the members states of IOR-ARC which would be held on
Thursday.

On Tuesday, the meeting discussed reports prepared during the
previous proceedings focusing on mechanisms to promote cooperation
among the member states.

The reports emphasized on areas such as information, education,
fish, trade exchange, and transport as well as combating piracy off
Somalia.

The countries also agreed to share information about the H1N1
pandemic in addition to swapping expertise in various fields.

During the meeting, Yemen was handed over the chairmanship of the
session from Iran which held the rotating presidency for the last
three years.

For his part, First Deputy Foreign Minister Muhyiadding Adhubi said
meetings of senior officials have discussed all studies,
recommendations and reports issued specialized committees of
investments, academics and other working groups.

These recommendations have been presented and suitable decisions
regarding them have been taken. All member states affirmed
activating role and activities of the association to serve its
member states. Yemen presented a paper on piracy and all member
states have agreed on supporting Yemen's efforts in fighting piracy
and establishing a regional center in Yemen for this regard.

Among of other topics discussed in the meeting are activating
important studies in many fields like tourism, marine transport
between these countries and activating them to serve economic
cooperation.


On Thursday June 25, Prime Minister Ali Mujawar inaugurated
activities of the Ninth Ministerial Meeting of Indian Ocean Rim
Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC).

Mujawar, who expressed happiness to open this conference, argued
participants to come out with treaty of trade between member states
in the association and a treaty to establish a council for
cooperation in field of marine transport and establishing a center
for technological exchange between the countries in the region as
well as a center for studying fishery wealth.

"Delaying or slowdown in carrying out cooperation projects and
partnership will cost you precious time to enhance cooperation and
partnership between them," he said, calling to make Sana'a meeting
an embarking point for joint work and real activation to the
organization.

"This meeting… comes in a time during which the world is witnessing
financial crises sweeping global economies and its effects reach
every country. What is pleasing is that effects of the crisis are
much lesser than on big industrial countries," Mujawar indicated.

He touched upon challenges facing states of the association because
of piracy comes from Somali coasts and threatens marine lines in
western Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the south of the Red Sea.
It led to existence of warships from European and Asian countries to
face piracy and protect trade ships.

He talked about Yemen's efforts, despite its limited potentials, in
protecting marine lines and effort when thwarted a number of
piracy's endeavors. He called the international community to and
member states of the IOR-ARC to support Yemen to build its coast
guards and contribute of costs of receiving refugees via choosing
Yemen as regional center for coordination efforts of combating
piracy.

For his part, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi reviewed role
played by Ports of Mocha and Mukalla in receiving and exporting
goods to different countries in the world. This encouraged Yemen to
improve its ports overlooking the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.


"Yemen gives Aden Gulf and the Red Seas' security and stability
special concern in its strategies to ensure easiness of marine trade
activity," said al-Qirbi. " This imposed on Yemen to carry on
shoulders responsibility to protect international maritime in the
Arab Sea and the Gulf of Aden, combating piracy and working on
restoring Somali peace and stability as the real solution to piracy."

He added that piracy and its effects on international trade require
integration of regional and international efforts to eradicating it
and coordination with regional countries not to affect fishermen and
legal maritime.

He indicated that Yemen presented a project to establish a center to
combat piracy in Aden, Mukalla and Hudeidah in purpose of
coordinating efforts of combating piracy and directing information
to ships could face pirates, affirming that Yemen depends on support
of regional countries in this purpose.

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the
outgoing chairman of the association's ministerial council talked
about strategic locations of countries overlooking the Indian Ocean,
promotion of economic and cultural cooperation and protecting the
wealth of the Indian Ocean and utilizing it well.

He also reviewed his country's efforts while presiding over the
association's eighth ministerial meeting last year. He also tackled
about the efforts of the association for the past three years.

Then Iranian Foreign Minister handed over the presidency of the
Ninth Ministerial Meeting of IOR-ARC to Yemen and chaired by Foreign
Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi.

Al-Qirbi started the secession by standing for a minute as
attribution to the soul of the head delegation of Sri Lanka who was
found died in the hotel he was residing in during his participation
in the conference. The meeting discussed comments and
recommendations of the participating delegations.

The IOR- ARC was established in 1997 for boosting economic,
scientific and cultural cooperation between states overlooking the
Indian Ocean.

The Member states include Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia,
Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, the
Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand,
the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. China, Egypt, France, Japan and
the United Kingdom are dialogue partners, while the Indian Ocean
Tourism Organization is an observer.