Doing business in Jordan is a treat, relatively speaking — investor

AMMAN — “Jordan is definitely a fertile land when it comes to business opportunities,” said  a leading investor, who came to the Kingdom with his “hard-earned” money of $500,000 and a credit line of two million dollars which helped him establish a garment company in 2003 that reached a turnover of $250 million in 2014. 

Sanal Kumar

Sanal Kumar, owner of Jordan’s largest garment factory Classic Fashion Apparel Industry, set up in Al Hassan Qualifying  Industrial Zone, said: “If you talk about the garment industry, which stands at $1.4 billion, if the right investors walk in, this industry can be a $2 billion industry in three to five years time, and can overtake other sectors to become the number one revenue generator for this country.”

“The US alone imports more than $130 billion worth of garments and Jordan exports slightly over 1 per cent of this. If new investors do come, we can complement each other and compete with the world.”

Kumar said two major garment investors recently visited Jordan and were “impressed by the prompt flow of bureaucracy and the transparency of the system here”.

He quoted the businesspeople who were in the Kingdom for only three days as commenting: “This country can deliver a lot.”

“It is all a question of bureaucracy, which in Jordan I would say is the best I have ever dealt with in my life. In some countries it depends on their mood, in others, money is the operating factor. I did not even have to offer a cup of tea to anybody in order to get things done in Jordan,” Kumar noted in a recent interview.

When asked about the low ratio of Jordanian labourers in QIZs, Kumar said: “I was pestering the labour minister for allowing me to bring in more foreign labour. Jordanians are not ready to come to the zones and I can’t snatch locals from their homes to QIZs; my business is time-bound and I have deadlines to meet.”

Consequently, the minister offered a “fair alternative”, telling him to go to the villages and start “satellite unit” facilities. 

Today Kumar, whose mother company in Irbid has an employee strength of 11,500, has created three satellite units in Ajloun, Tafileh and Karak, each of which employs more than 250 Jordanians. 

He is hopeful that by the end of 2015 these units can employ at least 2,000 or more Jordanians and sees this as part of his company’s corporate social responsibility.

The government is paying 50 per cent of the employees’ wages in these units and is also paying for their share of social security for the first 18 months, to encourage investors and Jordanian job seekers to join in these satellite units, he said.

Concerning criticism from certain circles that the garment industry’s growth and success has not in fact benefited Jordan, Kumar cited a 2011 study by Tufts University, US, which found that a third of the income generated in this sector is retained domestically as well as a quarter of the migrants’ income.

“Look at Aqaba Port and the incoming and outgoing traffic, or at Duleil, which was a farm, and now it’s an industrial zone; and look at the number of trucks operating today in the country compared to 10 years back. I don’t say all this is because of the garment industry alone, but there are many direct and indirect benefits to the economy from this globally influential garment industry.”

On whether or not the pejorative term “sweatshop” is still valid within the garment industry, Kumar, who hails from the southern Indian state of Kerala, held that people from the lowest income bracket make up the largest segment of workers in the industry and so there are possibilities for exploitation.

“The bad apples are largely a thing of the past, whereas before it was an 80-20 ratio and today certainly it is the  reverse. More qualified employers with greater awareness are operating in the industry. Moreover, strict consumer compliance norms together with organisations like ILO’s interference are credited for this change.”

Kumar has also had his fair share of controversy with abuse allegations, which he strongly denies and which are yet to be proved.

He explained that these attacks have in fact empowered him and made him “go beyond the compliance requirements of the international community”.

Citing his employees welfare — housing, recreation, food — he said that in this regard, his company stands on equal footing with the leading companies worldwide in providing welfare.

Kumar attributed the company’s growth to a “strong all-encompassing corporate culture of dedication, hard work and sheer passion”, spanning the entire segment of his workforce.

“Jordanian or foreigner, the willingness to work is all that is required, and the company will take care of the rest.”