Jordan, US sign a free trade agreement

The US and Jordan on Tuesday at the White House signed a bilateral agreement on free trade provides for, for the first time, items on protecting workers rights, the environment and electronic trade.

This agreement which is the first Washington signs with an Arab state is to eliminate gradually within 10 years all customs barriers in trade exchange between the two countries in the industrial, agricultural and services areas.

King Abdullah said that this agreement " backs a greater partnership between the two countries and constitutes an evidence on the determination of the Jordanians to build a new Jordan with all its potentials and talents."

Worthy mentioning that only three countries had so far signed a similar agreement with Washington. They are Canada, Mexico and Israel.

But this agreements with Jordan goes beyond that and represents for Washington an example for the future especially in regard to honoring the measures to protect the environment, workers rights and the E-trade.

The agreement explained that the two countries will honor in the trade area their special legislation concerning work rules and honoring of the environment In the area of E-trade the two sides vowed to encourage deals and to try and avoid tariff restrictions on the transfer of information.

Concerning intellectual property the agreement embarked on latest international criteria. The agreement also states that Amman has to ratify within two years the international treaty on writers rights and the Rome agreement to protect translators and artists works.

Worthy mentioning that Jordan's exports to the US did not exceed US $ 13 million in 1999 while the Jordanian imports from the US reached US $ 360 million, according to Jordanian official statistics.

Jordan, however, is the fourth country in the world to benefit from the American aids which increased during the past three years to almost US $ one billion of military and economic aids.