Work is in progress to benefit from the Malaysian-Jordanian Business Platform that concluded late last month in Amman, according to statements on Wednesday, May 9, 2001.
"The Malaysian companies that visited Jordan last month are working towards turning that potential they grasped here for cooperation into a reality," said Rifad El-Farhan, CEO of Middle East Communications, a leading one-stop information and communications technology provider.
"The Malaysian-Jordanian Business Platform is an opportunity for the whole of Jordan to benefit from Malaysia's mature ICT experience and leap-frog into the knowledge economy," El-Farhan added.
Jordan's visionary leadership and cross-region location, along with its strong pan-Arab ties could form the basis for cooperation with Malaysia, added the CEO.
Jordan joined the World Trade Organization in 1999 and is a signatory to the draft Arab Free Trade agreement. Furthermore, the Kingdom could become the fourth state to enjoy quota free status when the US senate approves the free trade agreement, while it already enjoys quota free status for products manufactured in the qualifying industrial zones (QIZ).
MEC and the MDC have a memorandum of understanding for ventures in the region and want to use Jordan as a base for launching these projects in the region by utilizing the Kingdom's pan-Arab relations for momentum, adoption of showcase pilot projects in the country for later expansion across the region and support in implementing these pioneering projects.
Among the projects under consideration is an incubator and venture capital funds. Moreover, the MDC aims at providing expertise and know-how to local Jordanian e-projects, such as electronic government and regulations to support the growth of the ICT industry.
"In the long-run, Jordan would benefit through knowledge and expertise transfer from the mature Malaysian experience, which it would in turn be able to transfer to the region at large and hence assume a more leading regional role," El-Farhan said.
The Malaysian-Jordanian Platform was co-organized by MEC and Musharaka Worldwide, a leading IT consultancy last month. The platform brought 20 leading Malaysian companies to Jordan under the umbrella of the MDC, a mandated government company entrusted with the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). The MSC is the Malaysian government's initiative to transform the country into a knowledge-based economy. The MSC has attracted a little less than 500 companies, of which 40 are world-class companies.
During the conference last month, Minister of Post and Communications Fawaz H. Zu'bi noted the inherent synergies between the Jordanian and Malaysian ICT country building experiences. The minister described Jordan as Malaysia's "sister," suggesting that the Kingdom could benefit from the South East Asian nation's knowledge-based economy building expertise – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
