Jordan Times
Sunday, November 7, 2004
Ministry of Industry and Trade to focus on modifying legislations
AMMAN (Petra) — The Ministry of Industry and Trade will give priority to modifying legislations regulating its work, Industry and Trade Minister Ahmad Hindawi told industrialists on Friday.
According to the minister, such a priority is
necessitated by the adverse elements, which exceed the positive items, contained
in the present Investment Promotion Law.
During a meeting with industrialists at the Jordan Chamber of Industry, Hindawi
indicated that the most pronounced adversity in the law was the absence of a
link between the incentives provided and key economic issues such as the
increase achieved in the exports volume, hiring Jordanian workers, or using a
higher local added value in the product itself.
Hindawi said the ministry is giving extreme urgency to endorsing a set of laws
for establishing an investment commission that would merge several investment
institutions, along with the Free Zones Corporation and the Industrial Estates
Corporation as well as the Jordan Investment Board.
Moreover, the ministry would work on issuing the laws for the Jordan Chamber of
Trade and the Jordan Chamber of Industry.
Hindawi also told the audience that the country's industrial sector has achieved
positive steps during the last ten years, citing the number of the ISO
certificates awarded to the country's various manufacturing entities since 1994.
So far, 550 factories have been granted the ISO 9001 certificate while another
14 factories have received the ISO 14000, attesting to high quality
administrative procedures, he remarked.
During the coming years, the ministry will work towards empowering the
industrial sector, mainly through creating an effective partnership between the
private and the public sectors, he added.
The ministry will also widen the list of exempted input materials after
examining the issue with the Finance Ministry, he pointed out.
Furthermore, Hindawi underlined the importance of standards and specifications
as they represent a bulwark that protects national products, stressing that the
Daman programme is a tool that protects producers and consumers alike.