The Chairman and members of the Board of Directors of the Jordanian Businessmen Association discussed on Monday with British Ambassador in Jordan Edward Okden the impact of the UK’s exit from EU membership on Jordan in addition to the most important obstacles facing the development of economic relations between the two countries.
Hamdi Tabba argued that the exit of the UK from this economic bloc will negatively affect the Jordanian economy by inducing additional costs related to the Importing goods from the UK. as goods that were exempt from customs duties before will become more expensive and higher price as a result of the re-imposition of customs duties. So based on that the UK’s exit from the EU will incur Jordanian importers unexpected losses related to higher cost of import.
Al-Tabaa said that “the Jordanian private sectors, which main business activities depend on the importing goods from UK, have to attempt to negotiate the British side about rules of origin in order to be able to simplified rules of origin that related to Jordanian exports”. He pointed to the idea of signing a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Kingdom in order to benefit from lower customs duties for the most important Jordanian imports and exports.
For his part, Ambassador Okden said that Jordan is the focus of his government’s attention despite to the small trade exchange volume between the two countries. He said that the embassy is considering holding a joint workshop to discuss the most important sectors of mutual interest such as tourism, travel, energy, mining, and healthcare and information technology.
The volume of trade exchange between the two countries amounted to about 488 million dollars in 2017. Most of the Jordanian exports were concentrated in textile materials, products and agricultural products, while imports were machinery and electrical equipment, cars, food industry products and chemical products.
The Jordan Businessmen Association is associated with a joint business council agreement with the British side where it signed in 1995. The meeting was attended by Board members Awni Al Saket, Hussam Al-Din Al-Hudhad and General Manager Tareq Hijazi.
