(With Photos)

CAIRO, Aug 27 (KUNA) -- Arab economic integration should get top spot at the forthcoming Arab economic summit due to take place in Kuwait next January, said a Kuwaiti official on Wednesday.

Undersecretary of the Kuwaiti ministry of Finance Khalifa Hamada told KUNA here following his chairing a meeting for the committee preparing ahead for the summit that the officials representing their ministries of finance at the meeting agreed that the summit should deal with topics close to the heart of the Arab citizen.

Up to 300 draft projects have been submitted by Arab cabinets and specialized organizations to the Arab League Secretariat to be turned over to the summit for perusal, said Hamada. Quite a few of them deal with pan-Arab ambitions in linking the Arab world via power grids, railway networks, and super highways, he said.

In future preparatory meetings for the summit, such as the one held here today, issues affecting food security and its impact on the livelihood of the average Arab citizen will be extensively discussed by the committee, he said. The committee is made of six countries : Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Qatar in addition to the Arab League.

Chief among subjects that will be tackled at the summit in Kuwait are the rising rates of unemployment in the Arab world, the sinking standard of living, the anemic intra-Arab commerce, the brain drain problem and the flight of Arab capital to overseas destinations and the ever weakening infrastructure in Arab states.

In addition to that, the summit will focus on energizing foreign investments, tourism, transportation, health care, and education.