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WASHINGTON — After warning for years that the US electric grid and other critical infrastructure are dangerously vulnerable to hacking, security experts fear it may take a major destructive attack to jolt chief executive officers out of their complacency.

While awareness about cyber-security has increased in recent years, infrastructure consultants say the industry remains reluctant to spend the money needed to upgrade their aging equipment — especially in the absence of much pressure from the US government, regulators or shareholders.

"I'm convinced the C-level executives don't understand the risks they're accepting," Digital Bond Chief Executive Officer Dale Peterson, a leading expert in industrial control systems, told the Reuters Cyber-security Summit in Washington last week.

"These systems are insecure by design," said Peterson. "If they truly understood the risk they were taking, they would find it unacceptable."

Peterson and other security experts say the problem lies with tiny computers known as PLCs, or programmable logic controllers, used to control processes in energy plants, water treatment facilities, factories and other industries. 

The PLCs are designed to blindly obey all commands, regardless of what impact they might have, according to the experts.

To wreak havoc, someone would need only to hack into that system and send malicious instructions to the PLC, such as to cause an explosion at an energy facility or chemical plant, flood a water system, or poison food supply.

Top executives at critical infrastructure companies think of cyber-security as a standard business risk and are reluctant to spend millions of dollars to mitigate that risk, said Stuart McClure, chief executive of cyber-security firm Cylance.

They "can't seem to get out of their own way of paranoia to a point of paralysis”, McClure told the summit. "What government does have to do, unfortunately, is to step in and provide a stick of some sort."

The Obama administration has encouraged industries to test themselves against a newly drafted set of cyber standards, and has encouraged more sharing of information about cyber threats and best practices.

Experts say that is a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go. Some urged the Department of Homeland Security to mandate stricter regulations, but the agency does not have that kind of enforcement power.

"I think what they benefit most from is not just hard and fast regulation: 'You shall do it this way’, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Jeh Johnson said at the summit. "I don't believe that the answer is to regulate standards."

Cyber reports
nearly double

DHS's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team says it responded to reports of 256 cyber incidents last year, more than half of them in the energy sector. While that is nearly double the agency's 2012 case load, there was not a single incident that caused a major disruption.

The incidents include hacking into systems through Internet portals exposed over the Web, injecting malicious software through thumb drives, and exploitation of software vulnerabilities, DHS said.

"I fear that things won't change until there is a major attack and people are shocked into taking action," McClure said.

Still, he and several other summit guests said they have noticed an increase in interest in cyber-security following the data breach at Target Corp, which led to the departure of the US retailer's chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel.

"This is ringing bells at the C-suite," said Charles Croom, vice president of cyber-security solutions at Lockheed Martin Corp. "This is just the beginning of a bow wave."

While some security experts hope the government can take a stronger role on cyber-security, some US officials say the private sector needs to step up.

The new head of the National Security Agency, Admiral Mike Rogers, said he hopes industry and the government can work quickly enough to improve communication about emerging cyber threats and prevent catastrophes.

"I don't want a major disaster being the driver that pushes us," Rogers told the summit.

BERLIN/MUNICH — The chief executive of German conglomerate Siemens tried to calm a brewing storm over job cuts on Friday after he let slip at an investor conference in New York that his plan to restructure the company could put up to 11,600 staff at risk. Joe Kaeser unveiled an overhaul earlier this month that removes layers of management by abolishing a corporate structure, along sectoral and regional lines. Pressed to give details on his goal to save 1 billion euros annually through restructuring, he said according to a podcast of the remarks posted on the Siemens website: "We do away with the four sectors; 7,600 people work in sector coordination, coordinating a middle layer that is gone," Kaeser said. "Another 4,000 people were doing a regional cluster analysis, which is not necessary anymore." A union representative in Berlin said: "We are shocked to learn that Joe Kaeser announced in New York that he plans to cut some 11,000 jobs.” The reports sent Siemens into damage control mode with a memo to the company's German staff, reassuring them that no final decisions on cuts had been taken. Siemens employees 360,000 staff, a third of which are based in Germany.

DAMASCUS — As Syria approaches a surreal presidential election in the midst of civil war, the capital has avoided the worst of the conflict but reminders are increasingly coming out the water taps and appearing on the dinner table, to the dismay of Damascenes.

Before the war, the government of President Bashar Al Assad maintained tight control on food prices and quality. Distracted by war, its grip has slackened, and shady business practices have flourished to the detriment of water and food supplies.

Rushing to the kitchen sink the other day to fill up a container with water, Mayada, a Damascene, wanted to store as much water as possible. 

"I must hurry, because sometimes the water cuts off in an hour," she said. "And look at all this sand. We can't drink the water anymore without filtering it first." 

She pointed to black and brown grains sinking to the bottom of her freshly filled water jug. "And God knows what else is floating in there that I can't see."

Residents say the quality of food is also deteriorating, coupled with price rises, especially fast food favourites like shawarma and falafel as well as "farouj", or roast chicken.

"Taste the falafel and you'll know they add bread crumbs to it to save on chickpeas," said Issam, a restaurateur in central Damascus, referring to the main ingredient in falafel. 

"You can easily tell the difference. Today's 'fake' falafel is greasier and darker and just looks wrong all around. People eat it because it's cheap, but everyone is complaining," he added.

Shawarma, cut from a giant rotating hulk of meat, is also under scrutiny. 

"Only God knows what meat they're using these days. Is it even beef? All I know is it doesn't taste the same as before," said Lamia, 32.

As for poultry, the birds look either skinnier than usual or unusually plump but without taste, prompting many Damascenes to wonder what poultry farmers might be feeding the chickens.

"Is it hormones? Animals protein? Garbage? Sewage? We cannot know," said Marwan, who considers himself an amateur nutritionist. "Back in the good days, poultry farmers got away with dubious practices. Now? I hate to even think about it."

Damascenes anxiously await the presidential election on June 3 which Assad looks certain to win, given that voting will be held only in state-controlled areas, but which they fear will be marked by a fierce mortar barrage from rebel-held suburbs.

The government, however, is waging a "Together, We Rebuild" campaign that now peppers the capital's streets with posters that feature hands clasped together — despite Syria's widespread fragmentation into sectarian and tribal enclaves.

Damascenes have been luckier than Syrians living in areas of the country beyond government control, bombed daily and cut off by prolonged but inconclusive army sieges.

Malnutrition is rampant and doctors say children have starved to death in besieged zones.

Price rises

In Damascus, people notice the small changes — daily staples soaring in price, sometimes selling at three or four times what they used to be, with the quality plummeting.

"Almost every single dairy maker these days is adding water to milk and to cheese and yoghurt," said Abu Mustafa, a dairy shop owner in the middle-class neighbourhood of Mazraa. He denies that he does it himself.

Before the war, the authorities kept a close watch on dairy makers to deter cheating and enforced fixed prices, forcing the dairy makers to compete with each other based solely on quality and taste.

Now there is hardly any oversight. White Syrian cheese, a daily must-have in every Syrian household, used to sell for 250 Syrian pounds ($1.60) per kilogramme. Now, it varies between 400 Syrian pounds to 1,300 Syrian pounds ($8.70), the latter closer to Abu Mustafa's prices.

Marwan is a regular customer at Abu Mostafa's, though he privately complains about the prices.

"I don't know what it is, but everything is starting to taste terrible. Dairy, bread, even the meat we buy these days. It's the same cut and everything as I've always purchased, and from the same neighbourhood butcher, but it now tastes like rubber," he said.

The outlying district of Ghouta was long one of the main food supply sources for Damascus but it has been in rebel hands for almost two years, rendering most of its produce, poultry and meat inaccessible to Damascenes.

Much of Ghouta's farmland has also turned into danger zones as Syrian warplanes routinely bombard it and government snipers prevent farmers from tending to their crop.

A dairy supplier who was unloading merchandise at Abu Mustafa's said he had been unable to access Ghouta for months, but instead now supplies them from Quneitra, 73 kilometres away in the Golan Heights near the Israeli border.

"They still have good farms there, cattle and poultry and everything, though it's not always easy for us to transport the goods into the city," he added.

ASTANA — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty with Kazakhstan and Belarus on Thursday creating a vast trading bloc which he hopes will challenge the economic might of the United States, the European Union (EU) and China.

Putin denies the forging of the Eurasian Economic Union with two other former Soviet republics, coupled with Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, means he wants to rebuild a post-communist Soviet Union or as much of it as he can.

He does, however, intend the alliance, with a market of 170 million people, a combined annual GDP of $2.7 trillion and vast energy riches, to demonstrate that Western sanctions imposed over the crisis in Ukraine will not isolate Russia.

But the world's major economic powers may not be quaking in their boots.

Ukraine has snubbed the union, other ex-Soviet states are wary of joining a body that could give Moscow leverage over them again and Kazakhstan fiercely defended its sovereignty during negotiations, forcing Putin to water down his ambitions.

"Our meeting today of course has a special and, without exaggeration, an epoch-making significance," Putin said of the treaty, signed to loud applause from rows of seated officials in the modern Kazakh capital, Astana.

"This document brings our countries to a new stage of integration while fully preserving the states' sovereignty," he added.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, seated at a long white table at which he, Putin and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko signed the treaty, envisaged the new union as being a major competitive force.

"The main mission of our union in the first half of the 21st century is... first, to gain a natural competitive advantage as an economic bridge between the East and the West, between Europe and Asia," he said.

Putin's dream

The Eurasian Economic Union will formally come into force on January 1, once it has passed the formality of being approved by the three former Soviet republics' parliaments.

The union — an idea first raised by Nazarbayev in 1994 but widely ignored at the time — brings to life Putin's dream of uniting like-minded countries, capitalising on the nostalgia of many Russians for the order and relative economic and political stability of the communist Soviet empire that collapsed in 1991.

After 14 years in power, he sees its creation as a personal political legacy for when he eventually steps aside and it has become one of the "big ideas" of his third term as president.

The treaty deepens ties forged when the three countries took the initial step of creating a customs union in 2010, guarantees the free transit of goods, services, capital and workforce, and coordinates policy for major economic sectors.

Putin noted that Kazakhstan and Russia accounted for one-fifth of the world's natural gas reserves and 15 per cent of oil reserves — although Belarus is not an energy producer, and its struggling economy looks like a burden for Astana and Moscow.

Asked on Saturday if he was trying to revive the Soviet empire, Putin said: "They try to stick this label on us — a label that we are trying to restore an empire, the Soviet Union, make everyone subordinate. This absolutely does not correspond to reality."

The new union, however, reinforces Putin's drive to show Russia will not be isolated by sanctions, a message he sent by reaching a $400-billion gas supply deal with China last week.

Any hopes of rebuilding a large part of the Soviet Union have been thwarted by Ukraine, which opted not to join the union after its Moscow-leaning president was ousted and decided to build trade and political ties with the much larger EU instead.

That was a huge blow, depriving the union of a market of 45 million people and, in the words of ex-Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, making Putin's original dream "impossible" to fulfil.

Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, hardly economic powerhouses, are considering joining but other ex-Soviet republics, including oil and gas producer Azerbaijan, gas-rich Turkmenistan and  Uzbekistan with its market of 30 million people, have steered clear of the union.

The creation of the new alliance also involves costs for Russia, posing an extra burden on an economy already on the brink of recession.

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov told Reuters in March that Belarus and Kazakhstan received about $6 billion annually from Russia in direct and indirect support, and said that could increase by $30 billion if all trade restrictions were lifted in 2015 after the union is created.

MAPUTO — Africa is "taking off" with strong, steady growth but poverty is unacceptably high so that governments need to build infrastructure and institutions and educate people to share the benefits more widely, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday.

Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow by around 5.5 per cent this year — well above the global average — with some of its poorest countries expanding by closer to 7 per cent, Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, told an IMF conference in the Mozambican capital Maputo.

But the IMF chief said although the region had become a growing investment destination for both advanced and emerging economies, with a record $80 billion of inflows expected this year, the economic benefits of the growth surge had yet to be widely distributed across the region's population.

"Poverty remains stuck at unacceptably high levels — still afflicting about 45 per cent of the region's households,"  Lagarde told the meeting of African finance ministers and development experts.

Despite forecasts of continuing strong expansion for the region, its positive outlook has been darkened this year with flare-ups of conflict, insurgency and violence. 

This has ranged from civil war in the world's newest state, South Sudan, an insurgency waged by radical Boko Haram group in Africa's largest economy Nigeria and attacks by militants hurting tourism and business in Kenya.

As African countries tap new sources of funds through natural resource discoveries and international dollar bonds, questions have also arisen about how governments are managing this money in fast-growing economies like Ghana and Zambia.

With the international recovery still looking weak and uneven, Lagarde indicated that Africa's positive outlook also faced risks from slower growth in the world's advanced economies and in emerging markets, which are the region's main trade partners.

The region could face lower demand for its exports should growth slow in increasingly important emerging markets like Brazil, India and, in particular, China. 

Beijing is a top buyer of African resources from copper to oil and gas.

In rapidly growing cities like Maputo, the Chinese presence is manifest, from a Chinese-built airport to the country's businessmen chattering on cell phones as they walk from meeting to meeting.  

Other risks included lower prices for some commodities, tighter external financial conditions and market volatility.

The IMF head recommended three priorities to ensure the region's growth can be wide, inclusive and sustained: "Build infrastructure, build institutions, and build people."

Infrastructure, jobs

Lagarde said Africa still had big infrastructure gaps, which represented huge costs to businesses and to people.

She cited as an example the fact that over the past three decades, per capita output of electricity in sub-Saharan Africa remained virtually flat. Only 16 per cent of all roads were paved, compared with 58 per cent in South Asia. 

The investment needs to address this in the region were estimated at about $93 billion annually, she pointed out.

The IMF chief said Africa also needed to improve governance, transparency and create sound economic frameworks for growth — she called this "building institutions".

This would ensure that revenues and benefits from the continent's mineral riches — Africa has more than 30 per cent of the world's mineral reserves — could be better captured for national budgets and generating more jobs.

According to Lagarde, Africa needed to "build people" in order to reap the dividends of its rapid population growth. 

She cited estimates that a one percentage point increase in the working age population could boost gross domestic product (GDP) growth by half a percentage point.

"For this to happen, however, 'good' jobs need to be created in the private sector. Today, only one in five people in Africa finds work in the formal sector," Lagarde indicated. 

"This must change. With wider access to quality education, healthcare and infrastructure services, it can change," she stressed.

Technology could extend access to financial services to millions, and this was already happening in several countries, such as Kenya.

"Africa Rising will benefit the lives of people on the continent. Beyond that, Africa Rising will benefit the world," Lagarde said describing the leaps made by African economies in the last decade as "nothing short of remarkable". 

Lagarde added that it was time to kick start the "next phase of its economic development". 

Yet, rights groups questioned the current optimistic view of "Africa's rise". 

"Africa is not rising for ordinary citizens," said Oxfam International's Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, who said she intended raising issues of growing inequality at the IMF conference.

She added that tax dodging multinationals were draining revenue from the continent.

"We have six of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world, and the fastest rising number of dollar millionaires of any other region in the world,” Byanyima indicated. "Yet sub-Saharan Africa is home to six out of the 10 most unequal countries in the world. The 50 richest people in Africa own about 15 per cent of Africa's GDP."      

The conference's host nation Mozambique, provides a stark example.

According to Byanyima, it is still one of the poorest countries in the world despite recording galloping economic growth of over 7 per cent a year over the past decade. 

Two decades after the end of a devastating civil war the country is experiencing vast foreign capital inflows on the back of coal and natural gas discoveries.

Separately, a report by Ernst & Young (EY) said international investors putting money in Africa are increasingly looking beyond the oil and mineral sectors and Africa's top economies as they hunt for new business.

The London-based advisory firm's survey of more than 500 global business leaders showed investors "are looking beyond the more established markets of South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya to expand their operations".

The number of projects in South Africa and Nigeria actually declined in 2013, while there were notable increases in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

South Africa in particular has seen a significant slowdown in economic growth in recent years, amid labour unrest, policy uncertainty and vast unemployment.

According to Capital Economics, Africa's most developed economy grew at the slowest pace in five years in the first quarter of this year, slumping to 0.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

Investors are also moving away from sectors like mining and energy — which no longer figure in the top ten for number of investments — "into more consumer-related sectors as Africa's middle class expands," the report indicated.

The largest number of projects were found in technology, media and telecoms; retail and consumer products; and financial services.

"Resource driven sectors are expected to remain the industries with the highest potential over the next two years. The actual numbers show that infrastructure and consumer-facing sectors will increase in prominence as the middle class expands and consumer spending on discretionary goods increases," said EY's Michael Lalor.

According to the International Monetary Fund, about 150 million people can be considered firmly in the continent's middle class. 

Ernst & Young reported most of the investments came from Britain, the United States and South Africa, with a "sharp uptick" in investments from Japan and Spain.

GENEVA — Yemen joined the World Trade Organisation on Tuesday (WTO), vowing to use its membership and strategic location to overcome years of strife and transform itself into a hub for maritime commerce.

Saadaldeen Ali Salim Talib, trade minister of the Arabian Peninsula nation, formally handed over Yemen's entry treaty in a ceremony with WTO chief Roberto Azevedo.

"We have easy access to three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. Our location is on the highway of trade. Our port in Aden is three hours away from the highway," Talib told reporters.

"We want to be on the value chain with the rest of the economies of the world," he said, indicating that it would revive an age-old trading history that saw Yemeni seafarer communities take root in places as far apart as Wales and Indonesia.

Yemen's WTO admission will take the Geneva-based organisation's membership to 160 when it comes into force officially on June 26.

Existing members had given a green light at a WTO summit in Bali last December, but Yemen then had to ratify its entry deal.

WTO accession negotiations can be tortuous — Yemen's began in 2000 — as would-be members first strike deals with countries already in the trade body.

Those accords are then folded together into a single accession treaty setting out the give and take involved in joining the club.

"It's been a hard process," said Talib, underlining that Yemen was also trying to break with years of instability, enacting political and economic reforms hand in hand.

"We hope that the new Yemen will have a bigger role in the international scene, especially in trade and industry and getting connected with the rest of the world," he told reporters.

WTO membership is seen as a key step in the global economy because it gives countries easier access to other countries' markets under a set of agreed rules, as well as a forum to deal with trade disputes.

It is also considered a badge of confidence.

"The reform process has not always been easy. But in becoming a member of the WTO, Yemen has sent a very clear signal to traders and investors that the country is open for business," Azevedo told reporters.

"It brings out organisation closer to universal membership. It is a sign of the relevance and vibrancy of the global trading system," he said.

AMMAN — Syria's economy, rocked by four years of civil war, is shrinking fast as industrial and agricultural output falls, leaving almost two thirds of the population in extreme poverty, according to a UN sponsored report released on Wednesday.

The study, conducted by the Damascus based-Syrian Centre for Policy Research and commissioned by the United Nations, estimates a 40 per cent contraction in the gross domestic product (GDP) since the start of the conflict in 2011.

Almost half of Syria's five million labour force is unemployed.

"The tempo of contraction in the economy has accelerated now," Syrian centre researcher Zaki Mehchy told Reuters.

Losses were estimated at $143.8 billion, a figure the report said was based on estimated damage to residential and state buildings. Experts said it was too early to ascertain more accurately as the heaviest hit areas are still combat zones.

A big blow to Assad's financial resources was the loss of most of Syria's oil production of around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), with eastern regions now mainly under rebel control. The government now gets a mere 16,500 bpd of crude oil, although the fall in gas production has been less severe.

According to the report, a major outcome of Syria's economic devastation was politically influential cartels who strip state assets through plundering and pillaging of resources and now have a stake in prolonging the conflict, the report said.

"There are powerful forces that are exploiting resources of the country from theft to land and oil smuggling and appropriating them. They now have an incentive in the conflict going on," Mehchy said.

The report said Syria, once a lower middle income country with a $67 billion GDP before the crisis that was witnessing expanding investments and fast growth, was now being transformed into a country "of poor people" .

Three in every four Syrians lived in poverty at the end of 2013 and more than half of its nearly 20 million people, many displaced or refugees abroad, pauperised and surviving in extreme poverty.

"The incidence of poverty in Syria has now reached catastrophic levels," the report indicated.

The independent Damascus-based NGO, which collates information from official and nongovernmental sources, said the worst off Syrians lived in conflict areas and areas that were under siege in rural Damascus where many face hunger, malnutrition and starvation.

The United Nations says more than 150,000 people have been killed in a war that has reduced entire districts of Syria's main cities to ruins.

The conflict had dramatically changed the economy's pre-uprising diversified economy. Government services and agriculture accounts for more than 50 per cent of a much smaller economy.

It has also dealt a severe blow to tourism revenues that earned Syria billions of dollars and has damaged its preeminent role as a transhipment hub from Europe to the Gulf.

Public debt reached 126 per cent of GDP in 2013 as the country continued to import mainly oil and basic commodities to alleviate shortages, the report indicated.

Syria was increasingly indebted to Iran, Damascus' main regional ally that has extended a $3 billion credit line that economists say has helped keep the economy afloat.

The Syrian authorities faced an "economic double bind" of ensuring costly subsidies of basic commodities continue to stave off discontent while at the same time reallocating a bigger share of public resources to a costly military campaign to regain control over rebel-held areas, the report said.

Economists, however, say the loss of large parts of northern and eastern Syria from government control, where the authorities no longer provide the same level of services or supplies of subsidised food, has also relieved pressures on state spending.

The more than three-year-old conflict has led to business closures and capital flight to neighbouring countries that have seen some major Syrian businesses relocating abroad to recoup losses and continue production.

AMMAN — Jordan Investment Commission Acting Chief Khaled Abu Rabei on Tuesday called for institutionalising investment relations between the commission and the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). During a meeting with FIEO delegation, currently visiting the country, Abu Rabei urged Indian businessmen and investors to get acquainted with investment opportunities available at the development zones and to launch joint projects in Jordan, noting that they can easily reach other countries’ markets, especially Iraq. Abu Rabei highlighted investment related legislation that can streamline steps to set up  investment projects in Jordan, besides the country’s stability and its free trade agreements signed with world countries. Highlighting the strong relations between Jordan and India, he said the delegates’ visit to Jordan represents a chance to develop the economic relations between the two countries.

NEW YORK — Four major Silicon Valley companies have formally agreed to pay $324.5 million to settle claims brought by employees who accused them of limiting competition by colluding not to poach each other's talent.

The settlement, between Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and roughly 64,000 workers, was disclosed in papers filed with a federal court in San Jose, California.

US District Judge Lucy Koh has been asked to preliminarily approve the accord at a June 19 hearing, over an objection by one of the four named plaintiffs, Michael Devine, who says the settlement let the companies off too easily.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs may seek up to 25 per cent of the settlement amount in legal fees.

Filed in 2011, the lawsuit accused Silicon Valley companies of conspiring to limit competition and keep wages down for engineers, programmers and other technical staff.

The case has been closely watched because of the potential $9 billion of damages sought, and its occasional embarrassing revelations into how Silicon Valley operates.

Among the communications that became public were pointed e-mails from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that at times admonished then-Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt to stop raiding his company.

Last week’s settlement gives workers only a few thousand dollars each on average.

The companies' combined profit in their latest fiscal years was about $60 billion, with three-fifths coming from Apple.

In court papers, two law firms representing the plaintiffs said Devine's objection should not doom what they consider a fair and reasonable settlement for an antitrust case, and which serves the best interests of the class.

They pointed to a July 2012 jury verdict in the same court that found Toshiba Corp. conspired to fix prices in the liquid crystal display market but awarded just $87 million of damages, one-tenth of what was sought.

"The amount of the settlement does not relate to the size or profitability of the companies we sued," Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview. "It relates to the claims we made, the law that applies to them, and the facts that we could prove at trial. Based on that, I think the settlement is a significant achievement."

Koh on May 16 approved separate settlements totalling $20 million over alleged poaching by Walt Disney Co.'s  Lucasfilm and Pixar units, and by Intuit Inc.

AMMAN — In cooperation with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the government on Tuesday launched the 2014-2019 National Export Strategy which was funded by Canada.

The plan seeks to develop the Kingdom's economy and strengthening it in the face of internal and external challenges, said Trade and Industry Minister Hatem Halawani during the launching ceremony.

He added that the strategy also aims at combating poverty and employment, while achieving the required development.

The plan is part of the Enhancing Arab Capacity for Trade programme (Enact) which was designed to provide technical assistance to five Arab countries to develop an integrated, competitive and diversified export sector within its five programmes, implemented in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunis. 

Halawani noted that as a member of Enact, the Kingdom ranks exports as a top priority, citing His Majesty King Abdullah's efforts to meet with investors and large companies, within a drive to promote Jordan as a promising country for investments. 

ITC Executive Director Arancha Gonzalez highlighted the importance of the national strategy in formulating a clear vision for exports based on consultations between the public and private sectors, in addition to the civil society organisations.

She underlined the need for Jordan to improve its speicalised labs, particularly in the area of agriculture, and to eliminate obstacles facing the companies in relation to the multiple bodies responsible for issuing certificates.

Ayman Hatahet, chairman of the Jordan Chamber of Industry, indicated that the industrial exports accounted for 90 per cent of the total exports during the first quarter of this year, generating more than JD1 billion.

He said the national exports reached to more than 120 world markets, adding that Jordan ranked first among Arab countries in the latest Global Competitiveness Report in terms of the added value of the manufacturing industrial sector.