Chapter 4: Trade Policy

The recent decade is characterized by a successful shift in trade policy: though accepting and implementing the non-discriminatoryprinciple of the WTO, Jordan continued to support its trade policy with a complex tissue of bilateral trade agreements. Trade reforms have been implemented gradually since 1996.Governmental efforts addressed unilateral trade-related legislative adjustments in customs and taxes, patent, copyright, and trademark protection. Once full membership in the WTOwas successfully reached in April 2000, Jordan agreed to assume all its market access commitments on goods. As for services, Jordan committed to removing 139 measures excluding market access and 79 measures granting national treatment. Since 1995 Jordan signed 24 bilateral agreements with Arab and non-Arab countries. These agreements are allowed under the WTO and are certainly beneficial to Jordan, as shown by the increasing participation of some of these countries in its total trade flows. This is especially true of the US-FTA Agreement, inforce since December 2001, which eliminates tariffs on virtually all industrial and agricultural products over ten years, and opens Jordan’s services market to US companies in key sectors.