Jordan's national exports reached JD4.66 billion in the first half of this year, up from JD4.39 billion over the same period in 2025. Industry leaders want the next wave of investment aimed squarely at pushing that figure higher.
اضافة اعلان
Department of Statistics foreign trade data puts the increase at 6.2 percent. The ratio of total exports to imports improved to 63 percent from 58 percent a year earlier, a gain of five percentage points.
The context is a royal directive. Reviewing progress on the second executive programme of the Economic Modernisation Vision, King Abdullah II called for attracting more investment and priority projects, with particular weight on export-oriented investment and public-private partnerships, describing domestic and foreign investment as a cornerstone of the Vision's objectives.
Three industry figures told Al-Ghad what they think it will take.
The base to build on
Fathi Al-Jaghbeer, former chairman of the Jordan and Amman Chambers of Industry, described the directives as timed to what the economy needs now. Export-focused investment raises production and exports, creates jobs, brings in technology and expertise, and deepens local value chains, according to Al-Jaghbeer.
He set out what Jordan already has: a diversified industrial sector reaching more than 150 markets, a network of free trade agreements giving Jordanian products preferential access, a strategic location, stability, and accumulated industrial expertise.
The industrial and craft sector comprises roughly 17,000 establishments employing around 271,000 workers. It produces 1,500 goods and exports 1,400 of them, out of some 5,300 goods traded globally, reaching markets in 150 countries.
Al-Jaghbeer listed the sectors where he sees openings as food, pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, chemicals and fertilisers, engineering and electrical goods, leather and textiles, plus energy-related, technology-related and high value-added industries. He gave separate weight to complementary industries, which would tie industrial sectors together, raise local content and cut import dependence.
The investment he wants is the kind that treats Jordan as a production base for regional and global markets rather than as a domestic market to sell into.
Turning opportunities into factories
The obstacle, in Al-Jaghbeer's assessment, is speed of conversion. Opportunities have to become actual factories, production lines and export volumes, which requires a more competitive production environment, lower business costs, and the infrastructure, logistics and financing that long-term industrial investment depends on.
His specific asks: accelerate energy initiatives, deliver natural gas to cities and industrial zones, develop transport and logistics, connect production sites to outlets and markets, and provide competitive long-term industrial financing.
Alongside those, continued development of industrial cities and zones, stable legislation, faster procedures, and incentives tied to added value, employment, exports and technology transfer.
On public-private partnerships, Al-Jaghbeer sees industry positioned on both sides, benefiting from the infrastructure such projects deliver while also producing, supplying and helping build them. He identified openings in energy, gas, renewables, water, transport, railways, logistics, waste management and recycling, and in developing industrial cities and zones.
He pressed for local content requirements in partnership and major capital projects, giving Jordanian manufacturers a larger share of the associated supply chains. That, he argued, multiplies the economic effect by feeding local production, investment, employment and knowledge transfer.
Exports as a foreign currency engine
Ahmed Al-Khadri, chairman of the Jordan Exporters Association and a senator, framed export investment as foundational rather than supplementary. Exports bring in foreign currency, stimulate economic activity, generate jobs and open access to international markets, according to Al-Khadri, and Jordan needs a national export base capable of competing and expanding globally.
He singled out China. Focusing on export investment opens the Kingdom to investors from many countries, in Al-Khadri's view, and he expressed hope that the coming period brings a surge in Chinese investment establishing projects in Jordan geared to production and export.
Al-Khadri also tied export projects to unemployment, arguing that new jobs and increased economic activity are what improve incomes and living standards. He pointed to the support role played by the chambers of industry, the Jordan Exporters Association and the Export House Company, which run training and development programmes to build companies' export readiness and familiarity with international markets and customers.
High-value sectors and the governorates
Iyad Abu Haltam, chairman of the East Amman Industrial Association, put the directives inside the Vision's own architecture. Launched by the King in 2022, the Economic Modernisation Vision is designed to outlast individual governments and adapt to economic change, according to Abu Haltam.
It rests on eight drivers, among them investment and high-value industries, and its second executive programme, covering 2026 to 2029, contains more than 180 initiatives and roughly 390 projects across more than 25 sectors.
Abu Haltam's test for all of it is whether living standards improve.
His list of promising sectors runs to chemicals and engineering, advanced machinery and technology manufacturing, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things applications, food technology and food security, agricultural processing and pharmaceuticals.
What qualifies Jordan for these, in his account, is human capital and the flow of graduates from universities, institutes and specialised training centres.
Incentives should therefore select for investors who transfer knowledge and technology and build workers' technical capabilities, Abu Haltam argued, not merely for those who add headcount.
He made one argument the others did not. Investment should be distributed geographically rather than concentrated in the capital and major cities, with a larger share directed to the peripheral governorates. Those governorates offer raw materials and mineral resources, proximity to Arab and Gulf markets in some cases, and access to the Port of Aqaba as an export gateway.
Directing export investment there would raise production and exports, employ young people, develop the governorates, localise technology and put local resources to use.
Abu Haltam returned to young Jordanians as the resource that matters most, particularly in innovation, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and advanced machinery and technology.
Source: Al-Ghad. Reporting by Tariq Al-Da'aja.
