Jordan’s Agreements with Arab Countries
Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement
(GAFTA)
On February 19th 1997, the Arab League launched a free trade program, known as the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), in which member states were asked to come up with specific commitments regarding elimination of tariffs, non-tariff measures and rules of origin. The so called Executive Program was an effort to revive the 1981 Agreement for Facilitation and Promotion of Trade among the members.
The program calls for tariff reductions over a ten year period at a rate of 10 percent per year, meaning that tariffs would be reduced to zero by
January 1st, 2008.
However,
during the Amman Arab Summit of 2001, parties agreed to accelerate
liberalization and thus full exemption of customs duties was effective
starting January 1st, 2005 amongst the 17 Arab member countries
with the exception of Sudan and Yemen which are considered LDC’s and have a
transitional period for achieving 0% customs tariffs by 2010, and Palestine
which has a preferential treatment that allows it to impose tariffs on
imports and grants it tariff exemptions on its exports.
Click
here to view the Declaration by the League of Arab States General Secretariat
Click here to view the text of the agreement
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Agreements