Aqaba port gets little benefit from Iraq's oil-for-food accord

Jordan's Aqaba port, the main crossing for Iraqi trade movement before the Gulf crisis in 1991, has witnessed slow growth during 1997, and received no real benefits from commodity shipments heading to Baghdad as part of the oil-for-food contract.

Officials at the port, Jordan's sole outlet on the Red Sea, said the volume of commodities transmitted through Aqaba during 1997 reached 12.3 million tons, thereby recording small increase estimated at 2.5% over the figures of 1996 but still well bellow growth witnessed recorded during the 1980's, when most Iraqi imports and exports were transported.

Records of the port's establishment said that the number of ships that anchored in Aqaba port increased from 2735 in 1996 to 2997 in 1997, representing an increase of almost 10 percent.

Jordanian navigation agents chairman Tawfiq Qawar said most of the contracts approved by the UN sanctions committee come from southwest Asia, and the shipments come via Dubai and from there to Um Qasr port in Iraq where shipment fees are paid in Iraqi dinars, Al-Safir reported.