Project "Economy of Jordan and Iraq" When will see the light?

Al-Slehat : Bureaucracy is the main reason for delaying the project

Al-Anbat - Zaina Barbour

Translated by Rahaf Abdullah 

After the great preparation for the launch of the Economic City project between Iraq and Jordan and its importance emanating from being one of the outputs of the tripartite summits that brought together His Majesty King Abdullah II, the Egyptian President and the Iraqi Prime Minister in the context of keenness to achieve integration between the three countries in a number of sectors, citizens wondered whether it would have an impact  A real positive for them in terms of securing job opportunities?  Will it achieve tangible results that are in the Jordanian economic interest?

In the same context, "Al-Anbat" contacted the Jordan and Amman Council of the Chamber of Commerce , where the media spokesperson for it, Muhammad al-Salahat, confirmed that the economic city is a project that will be established on the Jordanian side, not the Iraqi side, and therefore it will at least occupy logistical services and local manpower in the field of infrastructure, pointing out that most of them will be Jordanians.  He stated that the positive goal would be limited to employing manpower and facilitating the entry of Jordanian products into the Iraqi market.

He explained that its purpose is to consider the factories that will be established in this industrial city of Jordanian and Iraqi origin and therefore this facilitates the export to Iraq, noting that the latter has drawn up lists to determine its imports that have customs duties, stressing that exports of factories established within this city will be exempt from customs.

He indicated that this encourages the opening of many factories inside the city to be exported to the Iraqi market, pointing out that the work of these factories definitely needs manpower, and he added that these factories will encourage attracting investors from abroad because the Iraqi market is large and consumes more than one producer.

On the date of implementation of the project, Al-Salhat stated that the procedures, bureaucracy, tendering and the questioning need some time, pointing out that there is seriousness in following up the project from the Jordanian and Iraqi side and not ink on paper, attributing this to its great importance due to both parties.

It is worth mentioning that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply and the Minister of Labor, Youssef Al-Shamali, met a few days ago with the chairman and members of the board of directors of the Iraqi-Jordanian Company for Industry, owned by the Jordanian and Iraqi governments, which is implementing the joint economic city project between the two countries.

During his meeting, he stressed the importance of continuing to work with maximum energy in order to start implementing the joint economic city project between the two countries, which will work to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries in various fields and achieve a number of development goals in Jordan and Iraq.