Israel has made preparations to advance the development of a multimillion dollar joint industrial park with Jordan along their shared border. This plan has already been approved.
The decision to move on with the “Jordan Gateway” project was made on Sunday during a cabinet meeting of the Israeli government.
The plan was initially put up in 1994 when the two countries normalized their relations, but the final details were decided upon during a meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid last week in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
We are advancing the good neighborly relations between our two countries, Lapid stated on Sunday, twenty-eight years after the peace accord with Jordan. “This is a significant development that will help the region grow and prosper.”
The Jordanian administration did not respond to inquiries about the project right away.
In recent years, work on the project had already started, and a bridge that would act as a crossing between the two sides of the park was now complete.
It is close to the Israeli city of Beit She’an, formerly known as Beisan before the expulsion of its Palestinian residents in 1948 when Israel was established, which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” It is situated just above the northeastern region of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The project is expected to cost roughly 200 million Israeli shekels ($59m), according to remarks made by the Israeli government in recent years.
A logistics wing and a base will be constructed on the Israeli side of the park to move goods out of Israeli ports on the Mediterranean Sea because Jordan is a landlocked country. The park will contain Israeli and Jordanian factories on the Jordanian side.
Israel declared on Sunday that it will enable direct communication between Israeli and Jordanian business people and create collaborative projects in commerce, technology, and local industry.
The project will be promoted, developed, and run in coordination and combination with the Kingdom of Jordan and with mutual agreement on the goals of the project and features of its operation.
Despite the fact that this will be the first-ever collaborative infrastructure venture between Israel and Jordan, a number of Arab nations have been developing economic and security pacts with Israel lately.
Despite Palestinian opposition, former US President Donald Trump presented an economic plan involving Israel, Palestine, and Arab states in 2019.
Israel inked its first significant trade pact with an Arab nation, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in May 2022.
