Jordan Times
Friday, April 13, 2007
Investments near $1b in 1st quarter
By Samir Ghawi
AMMAN — Investments during the first quarter of this year totalled JD969.4
million, 212 per cent higher than the JD310.6 million recorded during the first
quarter of 2006, a senior government official announced Thursday.
Maen Nsour, chief executive officer of the Jordan Investment Board (JIB),
indicated that most of the investment flow was from Jordanians and Arabs in the
Gulf region. Speaking at a gathering to highlight the activities of UNIDO's
Investment Promotion Unit (IPU) in Jordan during the 2000-2007 period, Nsour
expected the total investments that would benefit from the promotion law to be
no less than JD2 billion, noting that total investments reached JD1.8 billion of
which JD1.2 billion flowed into industrial projects. Total investments in 2005
stood at JD750 million.
The JIB chief revealed that three investment promotion offices will be
officially opened in Kuwait, Qatar and Abu Dhabi next month.
The offices are presently functioning within a soft-opening stage, he remarked.
Besides the Gulf offices and the one in Shanghai, JIB is active in attracting
investments from the United States through a specialised promotion agency.
Between October 2000 and April 2005, the United Nations Industrial Development
Organisation (UNIDO) programme established and executed the IPU, with emphasis
on Italian investments, in cooperation with the Italian government.
Valued at 1.14 million euros, the project assisted local institutions in
attracting foreign direct investments (FDIs), provided technical assistance to
small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and facilitated flows of credit
towards local SMEs through a bilateral credit line between the Italian and
Jordanian governments.
Between April 2005 and December 2007, the project was valued at 1.2 million
euros "to assist JIB in attracting FDIs and market access for local SME
development", besides the technical assistance and the flows of credit which are
still operative.
In June 2006, the IPU and the JIB organised the investment and trade forum,
“Growing Business in Jordan”, to foster interregional SME cooperation.
The three-day event included exhibitions and demonstrations, bilateral business
meetings, technical tours as well as additional brokerage activities from the
network of UNIDO’s investment and technology promotion offices.
In preparation for the forum, the organisers established a database on the
export/investment market, prepared an FDI study for Jordan and identified and
selected 92 investment projects of 11 different sectors with a total investment
of around $70 million.
Hundreds of participants and companies attended the forum.