US Secretary of State Colin Powell exchanged instruments of ratification for a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher in Amman Tuesday. The treaty goes into effect 30 days after the exchange, reported Washington File.
The treaty is the most recent in a series of economic agreements between the US and Jordan, and provides Jordanian investors in the US and US investors in Jordan with international protection for the security of their investments.
On July 2, 1997, the United States and Jordan signed a "Treaty Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment." The agreement was ratified by the Jordanian Parliament in 1998 and by the US Senate in 2000.
The Treaty affords national treatment to investors in the partner countries, ensuring that US companies in Jordan and Jordanian companies in the United States are treated as favorably as their competitors. It also imposes limits on expropriation and compensation for expropriation, guarantees of free transfer of earnings from investments, and affords investors recourse to internationally accepted dispute settlement mechanisms. — (menareport.com)
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