A senior Kuwaiti trade official said on Sunday that there were no trade disputes between his country and Jordan, brushing off reports of a crisis between the two Arab states.
An assistant undersecretary for the ministry of trade, Bader Abdulrahim, told the official Kuwaiti news agency, KUNA, upon his arrival in Amman on an official visit that "there are no disputes, merely differences in opinion toward the implementation of the economic cooperation and trade cooperation agreements."
The Jordanian-Kuwaiti 1987 economic cooperation agreement stipulates gradual exemption of customs fees on exports from both countries with 20 percent annually to be reduced to zero by the year 1992, but the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 prevented this goal from being achieved, said the official.
Jordan halted the implementation of the agreement last month and began applying customs duties to Kuwaiti goods.
Earlier Sunday, the secretary general of the commerce and industry ministry, Samer Al Taweel, told the agency there was no basis for reports of an economic crisis between Kuwait and Jordan over trade exchange.
He further said that the economic cooperation agreement would be modified to serve their mutual interests, and that the two sides would be discussing the trade agreement during the visit of a Kuwaiti trade delegation to Jordan.
The agreement will be renewed to take into account the new Jordanian customs law of 1996, he said – Albawaba.com
