A charismatic diplomat, Jordan's Ambassador to Egypt
and the Arab League Amjad Al-Adaileh, hosted a meeting involving Jordanian
investors in Egypt on the embassy’s premises this week.
اضافة اعلان
"Success stories in the economic and investment
fields across various industries and sectors," he tweeted on Sunday,
"achieved by Jordanian businessmen and investors in Egypt.
We hosted a
group of these noble figures this evening in a networking, interactive meeting.
Jordanians, even abroad, serve their country and keep their eyes on Jordan. …"
Sounds like a nice photo opportunity but with no
substance.
My first reaction, and I
rarely react to social media, was to log in and use the 140 characters allowed
to write a fiery line, reminding His Excellency of the bitter fact that his
guests were run-away businessmen, fleeing an unfriendly investment environment
in Jordan.
I did not have to. Other followers of the diplomat did
the job for me.
"Your Excellency, these are Jordanian capitals that Jordan lost.
How can we bring them back? Jordan
needs every investor," a commentary reads.
Let's acknowledge first that the freedom of capital
flow and cross-border investment is a healthy economic activity, according to
best international practices.
Jordan is faring well in this aspect. According to the
Investment Freedom Index, the Kingdom ranked 58th among 127
countries in 2021, two points above the average.
That aside, it is a legitimate and pressing question to
ask why.
What has gone so wrong that we see Jordanians investing, according to
2018 figures, in 41 countries?
In the said year, the official Jordan News Agency, (Petra), reported that the volume of Jordanian investments in 42 countries stood
at $7.2 billion, with the UAE topping the list with almost a fifth of
investments, followed by Saudi Arabia (16.5
percent), Indonesia (11 percent), US (9 percent), Iraq (8 percent), Turkey (7
percent), Egypt (6.5 percent), and the EU (5.5 per cent).
In the past few years, even
small investments have migrated to countries like Turkey and Egypt, and even countries
like Georgia.
Last week, this column was
about the case of Mohammad Eid, the engineer who came to his native homeland to
build a light rail factory and ran into an uninviting environment that pushed
him to move the mega project to Turkey, where it became a huge success.
This
case has become iconic in popular culture as an example of missed chances
because some individual or individuals in the decision-making circles did not
do their job, or did not care to.
Ambassador Adaileh did a good job communicating with
Jordanian businessmen who have investments in Egypt.
What we need is to
institutionalize this effort and mobilize all our diplomatic missions to build
bridges with Jordanian expats to; first, stand at the facts of why they chose
another destination for their projects and address any deformities in the
investment promotion system; and second, to lure them back to Jordan.
It is, after all, a process of rebuilding trust that
should start now.
Read more
Opinion and Analysis
.jpg)
.jpg)
