Alrai ـــ The head of the Jordan Chamber of Industry, Eng. Fathi Al-Jaghbir, affirmed that the Jordanian industry is currently living in its golden age due to the support and attention it receives from His Majesty King Abdullah II.

Eng. Al-Jaghbir said during a press conference today, Tuesday, at the Chamber’s headquarters, that His Majesty's visits to factories will have positive consequences for Jordanian, Arab and foreign investors and industrialists within the Kingdom. He added that the Chamber has received many contacts from some Arab countries, especially Lebanon and the Arab Gulf countries, to establish industries on Jordanian soil, especially in the food sector, stressing that His Majesty is focused on making the Kingdom a strategic center for food industries in the region.



He pointed out during the conference, during which the plan for the leather and garment sector response to the Corona virus crisis was presented, that the pandemic proved the importance of having a local industry capable of overcoming challenges and providing a portion of the basic products to citizens.

Eng. Al-Jaghbir pointed out that the industrial sector was the first sector to return to work after the closure of economic sectors to combat and prevent the outbreak of the Corona virus epidemic, indicating the partnership that connects the Chamber with the government for the benefit of the industrial sector.

"The layoffs are a non-negotiable issue with the industrial sector, and it is not possible to abandon workers, because they are the capital of industrial enterprises and investment is made in them," the chamber president said.

For his part, the representative of the leather and woven industries sector in the Jordan Chamber of Industry, engineer Ihab Qadri, said that the Corona virus crisis had great negative repercussions on the global economy as a whole, and had a great impact on the levels of demand in general and on non-essential goods, including clothing and knitting, where it is expected During the current year, the sector's exports declined, along with significant losses in added value and treasury returns.

Engineer Qadri pointed out that the local small and medium enterprises operating in the sector were affected by the decrease in sales volume, the increase in the volume of operating costs and the lack of sufficient liquidity, while the large enterprises were affected by the decrease in the volume of demand in the American market, the reduction of production by more than 50 percent and the entry into a state of stagnation and low production.

And that the sector’s products possess unexploited export opportunities amounting to about $ 550 million to various parts of the world, stressing that if these opportunities are exploited, more than 33 thousand job opportunities will be created from them, 65 percent directly in the sector, which is about 21 thousand job opportunities and 12 A indirect job opportunity as a result of the sector being linked and moved to a number of other sectors.

He explained that the volume of added value provided by the productive operations of the sector has doubled to reach more than 600 million dinars, and thus the sector has contributed by 2 percent of the gross domestic product while it accounts for more than 27 percent of the total national exports, to be considered the largest sector in terms of capacity Export, compared to various other productive sectors in the Kingdom.

Regarding the sector’s demands, Al-Qadri said that small and medium enterprises are demanding to tighten control over imports and apply the principle of reciprocity, especially with countries that hinder Jordanian exports to it, in addition to reconsidering the indicative list of clothing and estimating imported goods at real cost prices of locally manufactured products, and tightening control to combat Tax and customs evasion to ensure fair competition with imported products.

He called for the necessity of speeding up the preparation of the Jordanian standard for clothing and footwear products to apply Jordanian standards to imported products, preventing the postponement of taxation on imported goods that have a local equivalent, and exempting the sector from delaying fines or any additional fines from various government agencies and institutions, in addition to many other proposals .

Regarding the large establishments, Al-Qadri called for allowing companies to go and implement deflationary mechanisms to save companies from bankruptcy, which includes ending expatriate labor contracts ahead of time and their travel, and to support the salaries of Jordanian workers in productive branches by bearing part of their salaries, especially in the last quarter of this year.

He stressed the necessity of exempting the sector from income tax for the year 2019 for a period of 3 years, bearing in mind that 2019 is the first year for the sector to be subject to income tax, after the export earnings are included in the payment of the tax, and the inclusion of development areas in the system of tax incentives for the industrial sector.

Engineer Qaderi stressed the importance of treating domestic purchases entered in the garment industry exported in developmental areas such as the importer through temporary entry data governed by regulations and instructions, excluding the sector from any increase in the minimum wage for at least three years and postponing work with the new decision, in addition to other demands of the sector.

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