Spain wants the currently disappointing volume of trade exchanges and investment cooperation with Jordan to rise and match the excellent level of political bilateral ties, a Spanish official said on Tuesday.
"Jordan and Spain enjoy great political relations and a very close friendship," Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Miquel Nadal told the Jordan Times after two days of talks with senior officials.
"We share similar views on many topics, and our stands totally coincide on the Barcelona process [of partnership between the EU and 12 Mediterranean countries] and the peace process," he said. "But our economic ties are clearly improvable."
Spain — the world's eighth largest economy, strengthened by a recent market and entrepreneurial rejuvenation — ranks below number 20 in the chart of Jordan's trade partners.
Spanish companies — dynamic investors in Morocco and many Latin American countries — earned for their country the title of the world's sixth largest investor abroad in 1999.
In Jordan, Spain's Al Deasa secured in September a $60 million deal for duty-free shops, in the framework of the privatization of five Royal Jordanian departments that have been turned into joint-stock companies. A Spanish information technology company recently also won a bid to provide services to the Ministry of Education.
"Other European countries, like France, Germany and Italy, have bigger investments here, and this makes no sense," Nadal stated in an interview.
Freshly appointed eight months ago, Nadal left the Kingdom yesterday for a brief but delicate visit to Iraq, where he said was scheduled to meet today with Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Cabinet members.
"We have always believed that the solution to the Iraqi problem had to be political," he said.
His one-day mission to Baghdad aimed to "listen to the Iraqis" and evaluate the deadlock caused by "Iraq's refusal to accept UN inspectors."
"In this context, there have been encouraging developments lately, as Iraq has accepted for the first time to talk to the UN to find a way out of the current impasse," the envoy said.
From Baghdad, his regional tour will proceed to Syria, where Nadal is determined to call on officials to return to multilateral cooperation under the Barcelona process. “Syria has been absent [from the latest Euro-Med conference in Marseilles, France, last November]," he told the Jordan Times. "We would like them to join again."
Syria and Lebanon launched a boycott of Euro-Med forums and events, saying an emergency summit of the Arab League convened in Cairo in October invited all member-states to stay away from any meeting attended by Israel.
As it prepares to assume the six-month rotating presidency of the EU in January 2002, Spain intends to give new impetus to the bloc's Mediterranean policy. "I am here to talk to the parties concerned and start designing a program for the Spanish presidency," he said.
After his meetings on Monday with Crown Prince Hamzah, the Regent, Finance Minister Michel Marto, Senate President Zeid Rifai and Foreign Ministry officials, Nadal vowed that Spain understands fully Jordan's difficulties and economic hardships deriving from its strategic location at the heart of the Middle East.
"Jordan is directly hit by the crisis in the peace process" and the four-month bloodshed in the West Bank, he said in reference to Israel's repression of Al Aqsa Intifada. "The country's economy was growing at a four percent [rate] in the first six months of last year, but now economic growth has dropped sharply to one per cent."
"For both Jordan and Spain, the main priority is to consolidate the peace process," he said. "I felt a sense of uncertainty among Jordanian officials," he commented, in regard to the possible impact on peace making of next week's general elections in Israel, likely to be won by Likud leader Ariel Sharon.
"But I also felt that, like us, Jordanian officials are convinced that in the end — and we do not know when the end is going to be — a peace agreement will be reached" between the Palestinians and Israel.
"There is some optimism that the present framework [proposed by former US President Bill Clinton] is wide enough to offer a solution acceptable to both parties," Nadal stated. "Over the past three months, [Palestinian and Israeli negotiators] have discussed issues that had never been put on the table before, such as Jerusalem and refugees.
"This is important progress, and with all the terrible problems on the ground, there is some scope for a positive interpretation [of the current stage of the negotiations]." — ( Jordan Times )
By Francesca Sawalha
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
