The Israeli Jordanian bilateral chamber of commerce organized last week the first of its kind seminar between the management of the Haifa port company and representatives of the Israeli logistic sector and the Jordanian trading & customs clearing sectors.
The meeting which was held at the Kempinski Hotel Amman provided the participants with an outstanding opportunity to discuss not only ways to increase Jordanian trade via the port of Haifa but also to discuss transport solutions to trade originating from Iraq and the Gulf states.
The Jordanian side included representatives of the Jordanian Customs Authority, director of the Jordanian Association of Textile Exporters, freight forwarders as well as large importers and exporters.
The Israeli side included the chairman of the port of Haifa company Mr. David Hermesh, Mr. Amos Uzani, Director General of the port, Mr. Amir Shani, chairman of the finance committee at the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Shlomo Sharon, chairman Federation of Israeli International Freight Forwarders and Customs Clearing Agents, Mr. Yuval Pyorko director Jordan – Israel bilateral chamber of commerce, representative of the Israeli Airport Authority and representatives of large freight forwarding companies.
Participants discussed ways and means to facilitate Jordanian trade via the Sheikh Hussein border crossing through the port of Haifa to Europe and north America.
The Sheikh Hussein - Jordan River Crossing is Israel's primary border crossing eastward and an important Jordanian crossing westward. Over the years, it has become a critical route for the Jordanian QIZ region (in particular in regard to the textile and clothing garment plants), an international transit route for trade, and virtually, the only Israeli Jordanian bilateral trade route.
The volume of trade at the border crossing has been constantly increasing. Accordingly, the aim of the seminar was to present the Jordanian private sector with a broad understanding of new vision put forward by the port of Haifa regarding Jordanian trade and measures taken by the port to be able to handle the expected increase in the volume of trade.
The director of the Jordanian Association of Textile Exporters noted that based on expected increase of the Jordanian trade with Europe and North America trade volume would grow four folds up to 2008, from current 250 containers per week moving through the port of Haifa to 600-800 containers p.w.
The Israeli side pointed out that not only transit time from Haifa to west coast USA was 18 days compared with 34 days through the port of Aqaba but freight rates were far less than the level charged to exporters using the port of Aqaba.
