The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will finance the establishment of an industrial estate in Jordan's sea port of Aqaba, creating 7,000 job opportunities, an official said on Monday.
The director general of the Jordan Industrial Estate Corporation (JIEC), Amer Majali, said USAID would extend a $22 million grant for the overall estate project, which will launched next week and completed by next August, according to the Jordan Times.
He said the project would attract foreign investments expected to amount to $100 million in its first stage.
ABB SUSA Inc, based in North Brunswick, New Jersey, was awarded the contract to undertake the construction work on the first stage, which will involve 530 dunums of land. This includes the infrastructure of the proposed estate, which at a later stage will be expanded to 2,750 dunums.
The National Electricity Co. will install a power station and grid, at a cost of $5 million, to supply the city with energy, he said.
“This will be the largest investment project in the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ),” Majali told reporters.
Majali said the management, marketing and operation of the new industrial zone would be handled by the private sector, while the JIEC role would be merely “supervisory.”
The new estate is expected to target small and medium industries.
Following the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty, the kingdom launched many industrial zone projects in a bid to improve its economy and create jobs – Albawaba.com
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