CAIRO: The ministers of trade and transport from Egypt and Jordan met in Cairo Tuesday to further discuss a framework for liberalizing transportation and simplifying the transfer of goods via land between both nations. This would allow Egyptian products to access the markets of Iraq and the Gulf region through Jordan via land transport and would allow Jordanian products access to the markets of North Africa via land, according to a statement. Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid visited Jordan last month to discuss ways to boost bilateral trade as well as to further develop land transport facilities among both countries. Rachid and Minister of Transport Alaa Fahmy met with their Jordanian counterparts, Amer Al-Hadidi and Alaa Batayneh, respectively. The Jordanian ministers are leading a delegation of more than 30 officials and members of the business community to Egypt. “This is one of the most important ways for us to boost our cooperation not just with Jordan, but with other countries in the Arab world,” Rachid said. “One of the biggest disadvantages that has slowed down the rate of growth of trade among Arab countries has always been the high cost of transporting goods,” he added. “This is largely the result of the lack of strong transportation facilities via land.” Two work teams will develop a framework towards this end. The first will focus on developing a framework for transport liberalization while the second will work to simplify trade processes between Egypt, Jordan and Iraq on the one hand, and between Jordan, Egypt and North Africa, on the other. The teams will study the establishment of logistics centers in Egypt to facilitate the storage of Jordanian products being exported to North Africa and a logistics center in Aqaba to store finished and semi-processed goods being exported from Egypt to Iraq.
