Jordan's Minister of Trade and Industry Salem Khaza’leh and Secretary General of COMESA J.O. Mwencha have signed memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation between Jordan and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in economic, trade, investment fields. According to Petra, the accord aims at helping Jordanian products enter COMESA market with consumers reaching 406 million.
“The signing of the memo of understanding deemed to be a positive step that would lead to signing of free trade agreement proposed by Jordan, as Jordan was accepted as observer to COMESA Secretariat General in November 2006 as preliminary step towards full membership in the near future,” Khaza’leh stated.
“Liberalizing trade with COMESA, will add a qualitative privilege to Jordanian economy though finding new markets for Jordanian products,” he added.
"Jordan," Khaza’leh said, "succeeded in concluding a series of free trade agreements at bilateral and multilateral levels, and we have already started harvesting the fruitful outcome of these agreements through the influx of major investments to various sectors in the Kingdom."
Earlier this month, COMESA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Jordan. The MoU was signed on 14th March 2007 at the COMESA Secretariat in Lusaka, Zambia. The MoU covers cooperation in the sectors of trade, tourism, housing skills development and technology transfer. Priority will be given to the promotion and development of trade and investment, construction and housing, tourism including the establishment of bilateral linkage in the tourism sector and develop tourism related infrastructure in COMESA.
COMESA includes 20 countries, five of which are Arab countries - Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Comoros, and Libya. Jordan’s exports to COMESA valued at JD100 million (about US$140 million) in 2006, whereas Jordan’s imports amounted to JD 360 million (some US$500 million).
