Although the sentiments expressed were nothing new, there were once again encouraging words about efforts to set up the Arab Free Trade Area and a decision was announced to cut non-customs administrative, technical and financial barriers. The Arab countries said they want to work together more closely in many areas, including improving the investment climate, better land sea and air links between them, and pursuing integration of power supplies. Business in the Arab world will be eagerly waiting for words to be turned into action. Nobody can doubt that getting wired will be an enormous undertaking for the Arab countries. A modern, totally digital telecommunications infrastructure, has become the cornerstone for national development.
Information technology is no longer a luxury, but has become an absolute necessity.
It requires widespread economic and structural reforms. It requires development of infrastructure and, perhaps most importantly, it requires education. An immediate practical task is to Arabize the Internet, and that is where the Arabic Internet Names Consortium, which has just met in Amman, comes in. The aim is to enable Internet users to use the Arab language and its standard characters set to write domain names in Arabic and navigate the Internet. This will open the door to the internationalization of the Internet for all Arabic-speaking people, allowing access at all levels without linguistic barriers.