UNESCWA is organizing its second annual Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Financing for Development entitled “The Role of Capital Markets in the Economic Development of the ESCWA Member Countries” from 19 to 20 September 2006 at “Le Royal Meridien” hotel in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. This meeting comes within the framework of UNESCWA efforts to assist member countries in the implementation of the recommendations of the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, March 2002). Co-sponsored by the Arab Planning Institute, the Securities and Commodities Authority in the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York (UN-DESA), the meeting creates an opportunity for the exchange of ideas on how to develop capital markets in order to operate more effectively for the achievement of regional development goals of poverty and unemployment reduction.

The EGM aims to provide an important venue for regional experts, government officials, and private sector representatives to elaborate ideas on how to stimulate the region’s emerging capital markets and how these markets can contribute to the “financing for development” and the economic development of UNESCWA member countries.

The EGM will start with a press conference at 10:00 am on Tuesday 19 September with the participation of Mr. Abdallah Salem Al-Tarifi, Chief Executive of the Securities and Commodities Authority, Mr. Jomo Kuwame Sundarme, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York, and Mr. Nazem Abdalla, UNESCWA Chief of Globalization and Regional Integration Division. This is in addition to the participation of representatives from the ministries of finance of UNESCWA member countries, Arab capital markets and other relevant officials.

Participants in this EGM will discuss the role of Arab capital markets with a main focus on the capital markets of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Experts will review the development of these markets since their establishment and the main rules that regulate their operations as well as the authorities that govern their activities. The structure of capital markets will be presented with an extensive focus on the main sectors represented. Experts will elaborate on the relationship of these stock markets with each other and on the extent to which they affect each other. Moreover, the effect on all Arab countries of the growth witnessed by the capital markets of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council as a result of the considerable increase in oil prices in 2005 will be presented along with the effect of the collapse of these markets in 2006. In addition, participants will identify key challenges that restrain the growth and development of Arab capital markets, and limit their role in regional and international development, as well as the constraints they face. The meeting will come up with a set of recommendations to improve these markets and help them accomplish their role in economic development.