Amman Hosts “Towards a Modern Competition Law for Jordan” Workshop

AMMAN - The Talal Abu-Ghazaleh College of Business/ German Jordanian University and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Amman held a workshop on June 17, 20009 entitled National Strategy Towards a Modern Competition Law for Jordan at Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Business Forum (TAG-Forum).

The event was held under the patronage of the Kingdom’s Minister of Industry and Trade HE Amer Al-Hadidi with the participation of Attorneys from Germany, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Lebanon.

In his speech, Al-Hadidi stressed on the fact that the Jordanian Government has implemented a number of policies and plans which aim at enhancing the competitiveness of the economic sectors in the country in a mechanism to create a healthy economic environment which attracts national and foreign investments.

“The competition law was issued as a temporary legislation on August 15, 2002 and became effective since that date. Accordingly, Jordan became the first Arab country in the Middle East to initiate such a national piece of law,” he said.

Al-Hadidi noted that Jordan’s competition law is in conformity with the international competition legislations adding that the Ministry has carried out several procedures to enhance and protect competition in the Kingdom one of which is the launch of the Competition Directorate.

“The Directorate has played a vital role in safeguarding competition regulations in the country. Since its establishment, its staff dealt with 194 cases and economic applications which included complaints, consultancies and economic research and studies,” he said.

Meanwhile, deputizing for Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, chairman and CEO of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAG-Org), Mr. Mustafa Naserddin, TAG-Org senior executive director pointed out that the lack of effective competition laws endangers the interests of the vulnerable entities and mainly the national industries in Jordan, consequently such entities will not have the potentials to protect such interests against the influential financial blocks and enterprises.

“I believe it is time to introduce a new modern competition law in Jordan to establish work environment characterized of equality and fairness that enables individuals, universities and enterprises practice their own Intellectual Property Rights,” he stressed.

From his part, Michael Daumer, KAS Amman director, noted that the world is currently witnessing a financial crisis, though Jordan is not extremely affected by it.

“There is an urgent need for a social market economy where competition is part of it. Therefore, we need to share and exchange our expertise in enforcing the competition legislations with the assistance of all the concerned parties,” Daumer highlighted.

The event covered competition laws – a theoretical approach; competition and the concept of the social market economy; Intellectual Property Rights and the business environment; the Jordanian experience with competition laws and the 2002 competition law-achievements, challenges and lessons learned.