The government approves the justifications for the public safety system in the Aqaba Economic Zone for 2026

The draft system is compatible, complementary, and supportive of the systems and instructions of the relevant authorities, civil defense, and public security, enhancing integration and information exchange among them.

The draft system establishes a unified and comprehensive framework for public safety across various sectors and activities within the zone, enhancing the protection of individuals, property, and the environment, increasing the readiness of establishments to prevent risks and handle accidents and emergencies, and supporting the continuity of economic, tourism, and service activities.

The draft system covers four integrated phases: awareness, preventive measures, treatment and rehabilitation, and documentation of lessons learned, and applies to all economic establishments, entertainment sites, public events, beaches, residential clusters, and tourist camps within the Aqaba Special Economic Zone, expanding the safety umbrella to include places where citizens work, reside, or visitors frequent.

The system is a framework for coordinating efforts and roles among institutions, aiming to develop the public safety system, reduce risks, and evaluate safety measures, alongside organizational clarity that aids in planning and compliance, enhancing the sustainability of operations.

The draft system is based on the principle of prevention; it requires establishments to analyze work risks, identify and assess their sources periodically, establish necessary measures to mitigate them, document and monitor these measures to ensure risk points are addressed before they turn into accidents.

The draft system comes amid the growing economic and tourism activity in Aqaba and the required technological advancements in public safety fields, which have become an important requirement for encouraging investment and economic activities, necessitating the enhancement of safety measures in all economic, investment, tourism, and social facilities, relying on awareness and education, and leveraging past lessons in this context.

The draft system requires establishments to prepare and update emergency and evacuation plans, approved by the relevant authorities continuously, and conduct regular exercises in coordination with civil defense, alongside providing effective early warning systems that allow all individuals in the facility, including those with disabilities, to handle and respond to warnings.

Protection mechanisms are not limited to workplaces; the draft system establishes safety requirements for event sites and tourist camps, including crowd management, adherence to capacity limits, regulating entry and exit, providing alarm, fire suppression, and first aid systems, and necessary services for the elderly, people with disabilities, and children, and in recreational facilities and games. The draft system mandates the application of the highest safety standards in operation, conducting regular inspections and maintenance of games, providing qualified technical supervision during their operation, specifying age groups and health conditions allowed to use each game, and clearly announcing them to users.

The draft system also requires taking necessary measures to protect road users during construction and maintenance work, prohibiting road obstruction or occupation that affects public safety without prior approval. It also imposes fire prevention requirements in buildings and residential clusters, and mandates maintaining elevator safety and conducting regular maintenance.

The system adopts a unified classification for readiness and early warning into four levels: green for normal conditions, yellow for heightened readiness and monitoring with the possibility of event escalation, orange for partial activation of the emergency plan with a high likelihood of occurrence, and red for full activation of the plan upon event occurrence, unifying the understanding of authorities and establishments of what actions to take in each case.

Procedures against violators of safety requirements escalate, starting from notification and written warning, leading to full or partial suspension of work, up to total or partial closure until conditions are corrected and safety requirements are met.