“Lloyd's Register inspectors finally packed their bags and left Aqaba port, three months after the government decided there was no need to renew the annual contract with this British firm,” a high-ranking official said on Thursday. “As soon as the contract expired in December, Lloyd's Register personnel left the country,” said newly appointed Chief Commissioner of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) Mohammad Kalaldeh.
Although the government has received six bids from international firms to take over the inspection of Iraq-bound goods — a requirement of the UN Sanctions Committee — Jordan maintains that after 10 years of compliance with the UN embargo on Iraq, five of those under Lloyd's Register inspections, the Kingdom and its only sea outlet, Aqaba, should be free of any international inspectors.
According to Kalaldeh, the highest of the six bidders offered to take fees that amounted to not more than 25 percent of what Lloyd's was charging. The annual fee paid by the Treasury to Lloyd's was $2,350,000. That amount does not include the cost to importers and merchants of extended delays and other obstacles to trade with Iraq.
“We asked the United Nations to justify why Jordan, alone, should remain subject to inspection operations,” Kalaldeh told reporters in Aqaba. He pointed to an influx of inspection-free goods from Syria, Turkey, Iran and the Gulf states, notably the United Arab Emirates, arriving in Iraq.
In October last year, the government took a unilateral decision not to renew the Lloyd's Register contract. The UN did not raise any objection to the move, ending nearly five years of expensive inspection operations. The Red Sea port of Aqaba, Iraq's principal maritime outlet before the 1990 Gulf crisis, has been operating at less than a quarter of its 20-million-ton capacity.
Jordan has consistently complained that Lloyd's inspections severely crippled the flow of trade with Iraq, the Kingdom's key trading partner.
Lloyd's inspection was introduced in the mid-1990s as the “lesser of two evils” alternative, after Jordan had protested against offshore inspections of Aqaba-bound cargo conducted by British and US naval units.
The departure of Lloyd's inspectors precedes the launching on January 31 of the low-tariff ASEZ. This pioneering project is designed to attract $6 billion in direct foreign investment and create 70,000 jobs over the next two decades. — ( Jordan Times )
By Saad G. Hattar
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
