Jordan urged to reverse decision to halt Turkey deal

By Laith al-Junidi

AMMAN

A Jordanian official on Saturday called on his government to reverse a decision to cancel a free trade agreement with Turkey.

“The commercial sector hopes that the government would restudy the agreement carefully to serve the best of all parties,” Nael al-Kabariti, the head of the Jordanian Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.

He said the abolition of the deal “without a prior notice has caused severe damage to companies that obtained privileges from some Turkish brands”.

The agreement “had positive aspects serving the national economy and consumers", al-Kabariti said.

Signed in late 2009, the free trade agreement came into force in 2011, but Amman suspended the deal in March of last year, citing what it called “failure to achieve the aspired outcomes” from the deal.

Last month, Turkish ambassador in Amman Murat Karagoz told Anadolu Agency that officials in Jordan and Turkey "did their best to re-evaluate the agreement on the win-win basis, taking into account the concerns of the Jordanian side".

In mid-October, Turkish Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan visited Jordan, where she held talks on the amendment of the agreement and ways to increase the volume of trade exchange between the two countries.