This is why His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II participated in the 'MED 9' Summit of Southern European countries in Croatia, at the invitation of the Croatian Prime Minister, where Jordan's participation in the summit as a'main guest' for the third consecutive time, confirms the importance of the Kingdom's role in the region, and its solid partnership with the European Union.
The 'MED 9' group includes nine member states of the European Union from Southern European countries, namely Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. The summit was attended by heads of state of Southern European countries, and representatives of the European Union, and they discussed opportunities to enhance mutual cooperation.
On the economic front; the Crown Prince discussed with the heads of state participating in the summit ways to enhance cooperation between Jordan and their countries in various fields and economic sectors. His Royal Highness also focused in his speech delivered during the summit on the Jordanian-European Investment Conference hosted by Jordan in November next, and its importance in consolidating partnerships between Jordan and the European Union countries.
His Royal Highness also pointed out that Jordan has many investment and commercial opportunities that it can offer to the European Union, where investment files, increased exports, advanced technology, and the utilization of trained Jordanian labor are the most important economic files that concern Jordan, along with digital connectivity, railways, infrastructure, and logistics corridors.
Jordanian exports are among the main interests that may increase in reaching European markets; where Jordan focuses on exporting medicines, engineering industries, fertilizers, agricultural products, and others, amid increasing demand for them in Europe, especially with the rising costs of labor in Europe, and thus it is possible to produce high value-added Jordanian products and export them to different European countries, and stimulate industrial and commercial movement in Jordan.
Files to attract European investments to Jordan, and enhance partnership in the green industries sector have great opportunities given the European Union's interest in them, where renewable energy and green hydrogen projects, recycling, waste treatment, green building materials, sustainable agriculture, and water projects are among the main interests of the European Union; which can be implemented in Jordan with strategic partnerships that serve both parties.
Economic and investment relations between Jordan and the European Union are very important for both parties, and they can improve significantly in the future, as the volume of trade exchange between them reached 6.1 billion euros, where the volume of European exports to Jordan amounted to about 5.2 billion euros, while the volume of Jordanian exports to Europe reached about 0.9 billion euros.
It is necessary to work on modifying these figures in favor of Jordan in stages within a sound economic plan, as the available opportunities are many and great, and Jordan has many opportunities to enter the European markets with high-quality products at competitive prices, and we also have great opportunities to attract European investments to Jordan in specialized sectors, may God protect Jordan.
