Business
-
.
, ,
:
Peace Partners
Turned Business Partners
,
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To foster joint projects
between Israel and
Jordan, the U.S. has
designated an industrial
park in Irbid as a free-
trade zone.
,
N
PATRICIA GOLAN
Special to the Jewish News
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8/21
1998
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136 Detroit Jewish News
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new Entertainment
Section!
t the Century Ladies Wear
plant in the industrial zone
just outside this northern
Jordanian city, hundreds of
women are busy sewing, finishing,
checking and packing. The workers,
nearly all wearing the traditional Arab
woman's head covering known as the
hijaz, are assembling bras, panties,
men's briefs and boxer shorts for such
designer brands as Ralph Lauren, Gap,
Calvin Klein and Victoria's Secret.
The labels on the underwear read
"Made in Israel." Under a special
agreement passed by the
U.S. Congress in 1996,
both Israeli and
Jordanian industries
located in this free-trade
zone can export goods
to the U.S. market
under the customs-free
conditions granted to
Israeli products. To
qualify for free-trade
access to the U.S. mar-
ket, without reciprocity,
at least 20 percent of
the production costs or
at least 11.7 percent
product components
must be Israeli.
The man who has
done more than anyone
to make this concept a
reality is Century's chief executive, 31-
year-old Omar Salah, one of a new
breed of American-educated Jordanian
financial wizards. Salah relates that his
initial inspiration struck as he was dri-
ving his car down a California freeway
listening to radio reports on the sign-
ing of the peace treaty between Israel
and Jordan.
With that in mind, he returned to
Jordan, set up a business with an
American partner and started making
forays into Israel to try to convince
Israeli companies to set up joint ven-
Patricia Golan is a writer for the
Jerusalem Post Foreign Service.
tures that would rake advantage of
Jordan's low production costs. His first
targets were those companies who had
ties with multinational companies
doing business in Israel.
Those Israeli firms that compete in
the global market began setting up
base in Irbid to tap into the lower
Jordanian labor costs. And capital-
hungry Jordanian firms saw the bene-
fits of taking advantage of Israeli
expertise and access to European and
U.S. markets. Today Century has built
successful joint ventures with 10 of
the 57 companies that have set up
shop in the Irbid zone, such as
Danone, Motorola and Sarah Lee,
which owns shares in the Israeli Delta
Galil textile company. Delta was the
first Israeli company to set up opera-
tions in Irbid.
With his longish, trendy haircut,
pale-green sports jacket and matching
tie, and American-accented English,
Salah reminds one of an upper class
Yalie. Even his secretary resembles an
American college girl, with her
cropped hair and striped, above-the-
knees overalls.
Century's corporate
office in Amman, how-
ever, is pure Arabian
opulence, with marble
floors and wooden door
fittings in the shape of
the company logo.
Until fairly recently,
Salah assiduously tried
to keep his name our of
the press. Many
Jordanians, particularly
members of the opposi-
tion parties, consider
him "defiled" by his
business association
with the Israelis. They
are adamantly opposed
to the free-trade zone,
fearing economic domi,-___/
nation by the mythically powerful
Zionist entity, and believe the United
States designated the zone to help
Israel make deeper economic inroads
into Jordan. The Jordanian profession-
al unions have even called for a boy-
cott of anyone who works in the
zone, and Salah himself has been
threatened.
Jordan's most widely read columnic --/
on economic issues, Fahed Fanek, dis-
misses this opposition alarm. "I think
most of the objections are based on
politics rather than economics, - he
argues. "This free-trade agreement is a
virtual gift, since America does not
require Jordan to open its markets for