By Abdul-Jalil Mustafa.
Amman, 1 May:
Jordanian businessmen have complained that a large number of trucks carrying Jordanian goods to the Libyan market . . .[restrict]are still stranded in the port of Suez due to the application of stringent rules by the Egyptian customs authorities.
As a result of the intervention by the Jordanian government with the Egyptian authorities, a limited number of Jordanian trucks were allowed to resume their journey to Libya over the past couple of days.
But the Egyptian authorities still adamant in their application of measures against Jordanian truckers and goods, citing keenness to block any smuggled commodities, according to the Chairman of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce Nael Kabariti.
”Such practices on the part of our Egyptian brethren run counter to the international transit trade agreements,” Kabariti told Libya Herald on Tuesday.
”Such behaviour also violates the provisions of the transport and transit trade agreements already concluded between Egypt and Jordan,” he said.
”The interruption of the flow of goods to the Libyan market has come to affect the Jordanian private sector through curtailing the volume of trade between the two countries which aspire to build up close economic and commercial ties in the coming years,” he added.
Kabariti said Jordan always respected its obligations under the transport and trade accords signed with Egypt and was allowing Egyptian goods to reach their destinations in the region through Jordan without delay.
”Our Libyan brethren are also entitled to receive their imports without delay,” Kabariti said.
Vehicles, equipment, food items and clothes top the list of Jordanian goods being exported to Libya, traders said.
Ferries carrying Jordanian goods destined to the Libyan market were forced to sail to Suez instead of the Red Sea port of Nuwaibe to avert the critical security situation arising from an ongoing showdown in southern Sinai between the Egyptian authorities and Bedouins there, traders said. [/restrict]
