Donors' meeting: reforms of business and investment environment Minister of Planning and International Cooperation chairs donors' meeting on business and investment reforms
Donors' meeting: reforms of business and investment environment Minister of Planning and International Cooperation chairs donors' meeting on business and investment reforms
Source : Jordanian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation
14-Jan-2017
In the context of the government's initiatives to improve the kingdom's business and investment environment, the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Eng. Imad Fakhoury chaired on Sunday, 13 march 2016, a meeting at the ministry's premises.
Ministers of Industry, Trade and Supply; Finance and the head of the Investment Commission, attended the meeting with donors working in the field of supporting the improvement and reform of business and investment environment and competitiveness. The donors are the USAID, EU, UK, World Bank, IFC, and the OECD, in addition to a number of European ambassadors and the key partners supporting the kingdom.
The meeting aimed at coordinating the support granted by those donors to improving the business and investment environment and at organizing their efforts to make Jordan an attractive investment environment through building the capacities of Investment Commission and reviewing the relevant economic laws and legislations. Those targets are part of the government's plan to improve the investment environment and enhance the competitiveness of Jordanian economy, originating from the Jordan 2025 vision that signaled out a whole component for the business sector, which included a number of priority initiatives to improve the business and investment environment and raise the competitiveness of the different economic sectors. Those targets were reflected as programs, initiatives and projects within the executive development program 2016-2018.
Fakhoury said this meeting is an output of the London Conference on supporting Syria and the region that was held on 4 Feb 2016, to support host countries of Syrian refugees and to give the Jordan Compact. The conference's outputs focused on supporting the government's efforts to improve the business and investment environment and enhance access to European markets through the simplification of the rules of origin, which is one of the most important pillars of the executive working plan drawn by the government as part of implementing the commitments of Jordan Compact.
Fakhoury said that Jordan adopted a number of policies targeting attracting investments and improving the business environment, in addition to building on Jordan's assets of political, security and macroeconomic stability, and legislations ruling the investment process and environment in Jordan. The last legislation was the new investment law and its entailing regulations and instructions; the target is to improve the business environment and attract more foreign and local investments to generate proper and promising job opportunities to our citizens.
The minister highlighted the most important components of the government's working plan to be implemented with donors. Those are the revision of laws and regulations ruling the business and investment environment to avoid duplication and overlapping legislations; activating the role of the investment window and promoting investment and exports, building the capacities of the Investment Commission and improving the business environment in the kingdom generally.
The minister also reviewed the economic reforms package that were implemented in the first phase to reflect positively on Jordan's ranking in the Doing Business Report, and the second phase of reforms that MOPIC, in cooperation with all concerned parties, started to implement.
The meeting witnessed discussions on the nature of support and projects implemented by the donors in the field of accelerating the upgrading of business and investment environment and competitiveness. The government and the donors agreed to organize and coordinate efforts exerted by all donors in all fields and to unify them into one comprehensive program to amplify the benefit arising of those reforms and accelerate the pace of work to reach an attractive and stimulating environment of investments that prevent duplication and overlapping in the work of donors.
The minister urged donors to commit to their support and give high priority to implement all projects and initiatives relevant to reforms in business and investment environment, especially the procedures and strategies of investment promoting and marketing, and the regulations and rules governing the work of the Jordan Investment Commission in the future.
The two sides agreed on periodical meetings with all donors to review work progress in implementing reforms and activities pertaining thereto, within the approach to unify them in one comprehensive framework.
Donors praised the government's measures to organize and coordinate work and prevent overlapping and scattered efforts in the field of improving the business and investment environment and competitiveness.
The donors reviewed their programs to support the business and investment environment, stressing that they would redirect their interventions to accelerate the pace of support and to build capacities and technical assistance to achieve complementarity in their efforts.
On their part, members of the government team stressed efforts to improve the business and investment environment, exerted by government ministries and institutions, as well as the technical assistance required in this stage.