Industrialists boycott meeting with premier, citing ‘disappointment’ with gov’t policies

AMMAN – Industrialists on Sunday said they boycotted a meeting Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour held with the private sector because of their “disappointment with government policies that worsened their problems”.  

Fathi Jaghbir, board member of the Jordan Chamber of Industry and vice chairman of the Amman Chamber of Industry, told The Jordan Times that representatives of the sector decided not to attend the meeting, organised by the Amman Chamber of Commerce.

He said they took the decision because difficulties facing the industrial sector were not on the meeting agenda and in protest against government policies that hurt the competitiveness of products manufactured in the Kingdom. 

“This government has ignored the interests of the industrial sector in a way that never happened before,” Jaghbir said, adding that over the past two years, sector representatives have been trying to meet the premier to brief him on the woes facing factories in Jordan but to no avail. 

Ensour is the only prime minister in Jordan’s recent history who has never visited the chamber of industry, the industrialist noted.

He said around 1,600 industrial establishments either closed down or moved to other countries in the past two years, leaving hundreds of Jordanians unemployed. 

Industrialists claim that increases in power tariffs have affected the competitiveness of locally made products in both the domestic and international markets as operational costs went up sharply. 

Between 2010 and 2015, electricity prices almost doubled, and the hike made Jordanian factories unable to compete with regional manufacturers, Jaghbir explained. 

The sector is the Kingdom’s largest employer, constituting around 25 per cent of the gross domestic product and 90 per cent of national exports, he said. 

Jaghbir noted that several officials tried to convince sector leaders to attend the meeting, which he described as “only a protocol gathering”.