São Paulo – Jordan receives around 200,000 foreign tourists a year for aesthetic treatment. The visitors go to the country after alternative therapy with Dead Sea mud or even plastic surgery. This places Jordan in the fifth place in the ranking of countries that receive most tourists for therapeutic medicine in the world, according to figures disclosed at the 14th Arab Business Owners and Investors 2011, which ended on Wednesday (2), in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
The objective of the meeting was to attract foreign investment and it counted on the participation of the secretary general at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, alongside around 500 businessmen and executives from the country and abroad. According to Alaby, there are currently in Jordan around 28 doctors and one dentist for every 10,000 inhabitants. To make the sector attractive, the Arab country also offers zero import tax on medical, hospital, dentistry and chemist products.
Therapeutic medicine (with alternative products like herbs and mud) answers to 27% of global tourism in the sector, according to figures disclosed to ANBA by Alaby. India is in the first rank in the sector, attracting 1.2 million people a year. Jordan’s talent for tourism in aesthetic and therapeutic treatment is historic and attracts global events in the area to the nation. In 2013, Jordan should host a World Tourism Organisation meeting.
In Jordan, tourism is responsible for 15% of Gross Domestic Product, according to Alaby. The country is also interested in attracting foreign investment to the sector in the form of hotels and restaurants. In the congress in Amman, some points in which the country needs to advance in its search for greater investment were discussed, among them the establishment of less bureaucratic legislation for foreign investment. Jordan, however, offers an insurance policy for foreigners, for cases like fire and force majeure in their enterprises.
Other sectors presented at the meeting were transport and telecommunications. There are currently in the region projects for the construction of three railways, which may be concluded up to 2020. One, 950 kilometres long, should stretch from Damascus, Syria, to Amman, and the other, 4,500 kilometres long, should cross several parts of the Gulf, reaching Damascus and Amman. A third will start in Damascus and head to Istanbul, Turkey. They will be tendered in the near future and should be developed in Public-Private Partnerships, with investment reaching US$ 3 billion.
In the panels of the conference, the main port in the country was also introduced, in Aqaba. The port serves both Jordan and Iraq and its draft is sufficient for large vessels. The cost for offloading a container varies from US$ 120 to US$ 150, well below the European rates, which are approximately US$ 250. Telecommunications systems are also under expansion in the country and, according to speakers at the event, there is space for investment in 3G mobile telephony and internet providing. Telecommunications answer to 14% of the Jordanian GDP.
*Translated by Mark Ament