Iraq and Jordan have agreed on the outlines of a proposed free trade accord, Baghdad's third with a fellow Arab state, the Iraqi commerce minister said Wednesday.
"We have agreed on the clauses of a planned accord to set up a free trade zone that the two countries will submit to their governments," said Mohammad Mehdi Saleh, quoted by the official news agency INA.
His Jordanian counterpart Wassef Azar, at the end of a five-day visit, said the results of his talks in Baghdad would also clear the way for the implementation "before the end of February" of a trade agreement signed in November.
Under the existing agreement, Amman exports $450 million worth of goods to Iraq a year. In return, it will receive five million tons of petroleum in 2001, half for free and the rest at preferential rates.
Last month, Iraq, which has been under international sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, signed free trade agreements with Egypt and Syria. — (AFP, Baghdad)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
