The 16th Arab Business Community Forum kicked off on Saturday 7th of April, 2018 in the Dead Sea, Jordan, under the theme of “Towards integrated Arab partnerships”
The two-day gathering – under the patronage of Jordanian King Abdullah II – is organized by the Federation of Arab Businessmen and the Jordanian Businessmen Association.
During the opening session. Jordanian Minister of State for Investment Affairs Muhannad Shehadeh – speaking on behalf of the monarch – urged Arab communities to embrace youth innovations in various sectors, highlighting the youths’ pivotal role in pioneering entrepreneurship.
He underlined the importance of cooperation with the private sector and realizing trade integration, especially through benefiting from free trade zone agreements at regional and international levels.
He asserted the importance of luring new investments to create jobs for Arab youths.
He called for activating the common Arab market and boosting joint Arab action.
He said Jordan is adopting several policies and measures in various domains to turn into an investment-attractive destination.
Jordan seeks to realize a breakthrough vis-à-vis several international indicators to be a key international business hub, he added.
Pursuing this goal, Jordan is working to achieve sustainable development to ensure maintaining the economic growth rate, offering proper social service and investing in the fields of infrastructure, logistics and technical services.
Meanwhile, Hamdi Al-Tabaa, the President of the Federation of Arab Businessmen, called for a serious Arab action to restructure the Arab economic system.
He also urged revisiting partnership and free trade zones agreements among Arab states on the one hand and with world countries on the other hand.
He called for offering removing obstacles hampering Arab businessmen and developing partnerships between the private and public sectors.
He also exhorted supporting green economy, solar energy and IT sectors.
Meanwhile, the Arab League envoy Rehab Hamed voiced hope that the upcoming Arab summit due to be held in Saudi Arabia will give momentum to investment and trade exchange among Arab states.
She noted that the volume of investments flowing to Arab states represented 1.8% of the total global investment in 2016.
The forum addresses several key issues, including evaluation of the economic situation in the Arab world; Arab economic relations with the global economic blocs; the green economy and the future of energy and water in Arab partnerships integration; knowledge-based economy as a gateway to the future of Arab investments; electronic financial revolution and digital currencies; the role of Arab youth in entrepreneurship; and investment opportunities in the Arab world.
On the sidelines of the forum, a specialized exhibition on investment in the Arab world will be held, which will be attended by a number of investment commissions in the Arab world, to present investment opportunities in the Arab world and major projects available to the private sector.
