Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril

by King Abdullah II

  Back in Amman, I learned that one of my fellow delegates from Davos, John Chambers, had announced that he was so impressed by the potential opportunities in Jordan that Cisco would invest $1 million here in a venture capital fund for high-tech companies. Cisco, a manufacturer of the infrastructure that powers the Internet, subsequently became a key partner, helping us to increase Internet access throughout the country. Chambers has been an outstanding friend to Jordan, donating computer equipment and opening an office in Amman, and has been very vocal in promoting our country, telling other business leaders about the opportunities in Jordan.

  But we could not rely only on outsiders to develop our information technology industry. Soon local entrepreneurs started to spring up. In 1994, Randa Ayoubi founded Rubicon, an education software company. Using venture capital investment, she expanded into animation, creating a multimillion-dollar company with offices in Amman, Los Angeles, Dubai, and Manila. Rubicon produced a children’s cartoon series, Ben & Izzy, about two boys—one American, one Jordanian—who go on adventures together through history. She signed a deal with MGM to promote the Pink Panther cartoon in the Middle East and received a further multimillion-dollar investment from a Gulf buyout firm.

  In 1997, two young Jordanians, Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury, started an Arabic-language Web-based e-mail service. Named Maktoob (“it is written” in Arabic), the company became one of the region’s largest online Web portals, with over sixteen million users, and attracted millions of dollars in venture capital investment. In August 2009, Maktoob was acquired by the American Internet company Yahoo!. For a high-tech start-up to be bought by a technology giant may be nothing new in Silicon Valley, but this was a first for Jordan, and for the Arab world, and I was immensely proud of the founders for showing that we could compete on a global stage.

  One of the benefits of information technology is the impact it can have at all levels of society. From my time as an army officer, I knew how quickly my soldiers could learn to operate a Challenger I tank with its computer-aided firing system. I was tremendously proud of their intelligence and adaptability and knew that they would be successful in any environment, given the right opportunities. A lot of these people had entered the army as enlisted men because that was the only route of advancement open to them. Many had the potential to go to university, but they could not afford the cost.

  Many of these talented men left the army when they were young, in their late thirties and early forties, and still had much to contribute. So through the Royal Court we provided scholarships for all retired servicemen who wanted to learn computer skills. These men were extremely dedicated students, and almost all graduated. Many went on to work as technical experts in schools, training teachers in the latest computer technologies.

  We also instituted sweeping educational reforms, making it mandatory for computer skills and English to be taught in all schools across the country from the first grade onward and increasing standards in math and science. Our efforts have paid off. Every four years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving education, conducts an international assessment of science and math teaching. In 2007, Jordan’s eighth graders ranked the highest in the Arab world—in science they came out ahead of Malaysia, Thailand, and Israel.

  Our first public university, the University of Jordan, was founded in 1962, and our first private university, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, in 1990. There are now twenty private universities and ten more public universities attended by 243,000 students across the country. A large number of students from both the public and private institutions graduate with technical and engineering degrees, providing a skilled pool of employees for foreign companies investing in Jordan, local start-ups, and high-tech businesses across the region. We also began to set up IT skills clinics in remote areas across the country where local people could learn about computers free of charge.

  Information technology and education are both key to improving a nation’s economy, but to develop further we would have to continue opening up to the world. Joining the WTO was only the first step.

  In June 2000, I returned to the United States and met with President Clinton, who congratulated me on our membership in the WTO. Again, he asked what he could do to help Jordan. And again I think he half expected me to ask for an increase in aid. This time I said, “I want a free trade agreement with the United States.” Going far beyond the general terms of the WTO, a free trade agreement (FTA) reduces tariffs on trade between two countries to the lowest practical level. FTAs are extremely prized for the access they give to the American market. At that time the United States had FTAs with only three countries: Canada, Mexico, and Israel.

  Though somewhat taken aback, President Clinton said he would provide his full support. We began negotiations on June 6, 2000, and the U.S.-Jordan FTA was approved by the U.S. Senate on September 24, 2001. Jordan became the first Arab country to sign an FTA with the United States. Boosted by the reduction in tariffs, total exports from Jordan to the United States rose from $18 million in 1998 to about $1 billion by 2009—outstripping the level of our total exports worldwide when I took office.

  Remembering our conversation from the previous year, President Clinton told me that he had met with President Assad of Syria in Geneva a few months earlier, but the meeting had been disappointing. No progress was made and it did not look likely that Syrian-Israeli negotiations would resume.

  Domestically, we continued the effort to make Jordan attractive to foreign investors by creating a special economic zone in the southern port of Aqaba in May 2001. The economic zone had zero customs duty and greatly reduced tax rates, and it aimed to attract $6 billion of investment by 2020, an ambitious target. The incentives were more popular than we ever imagined, and by the end of 2008 we had already attracted over $20 billion in foreign investment, including funds from the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Lebanon.

  The Kuwaitis, and in particular Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, have been some of Jordan’s strongest supporters, and among the largest investors in our economy. Rania was born in Kuwait, and the emir always refers to her as his daughter. Every time we meet, he treats me like a member of his family. “How is our daughter?” he asks.

  Building on the success of Aqaba, we set up additional special economic zones, offering reduced tax and customs duties in Mafraq, Maan, Irbid, the Dead Sea, and Ajloun. These zones have also begun to attract major foreign investment, including from Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Lebanon.

  Our companies were now playing on a global stage. A few of our larger businesses, such as Aramex, a courier company, and Hikma, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, were successfully competing internationally. Our membership in the WTO opened new markets for them. But many smaller companies were struggling. We needed to build on our local advantages, and began to devise mechanisms to help. The King Abdullah II Fund for Development provides capital and infrastructure to promising Jordanian entrepreneurs. And we soon found exactly the type of project we were looking for.

  In the mountains of Ajloun, in northern Jordan, are some of the oldest olive trees in the world. But many farmers were using fiftyyear-old equipment to produce olive oil, and a few were employing methods that had not changed for millennia, using small presses and selling their wares locally in old glass jars. The rest of the crop would be sold for pennies to foreign companies, including Italian and Spanish ones, which, using the most modern equipment, processed our olives into expensive oils and sold them for a large profit. The fund invested in advanced pressing, bottling, and packaging equipment and set up a specialist company to help with branding and marketing. The resulting product is now sold in some of London’s most exclusive department stores.

  One of my priorities has been to strengthen the Jordanian manufacturing and industrial base, particularly in the area of military technology. The King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau (KADDB), founded in 1999, has been a key part of this strategy. Thro
ugh KADDB, Jordanian tanks and armored vehicles have been upgraded and new projects initiated (many of which are classified). We have expanded our collaboration with other nations’ armed forces, including those of the United States, Brunei, and Azerbaijan. Deals have been signed with European defense companies to maintain F-16 aircraft, develop military vehicles, and manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles. Working with a Russian partner, KADDB developed a new and extremely powerful shoulder-launched antitank missile, the RPG-32. Our products have been sold to Yemen, Libya, and Oman, among other countries.

  One new project with enormous ramifications is the development of Jordan’s significant but unexploited uranium deposits. Although we had long known that our country had considerable uranium deposits, we had not moved to explore their commercial potential. In 2008 we set up the Jordanian-French Uranium Mining Company, a joint venture with the French power company AREVA. After initial surveys revealed a large quantity of uranium in the central desert, estimated at some 4 to 6 percent of the world’s total uranium reserves, we began working on setting up Jordan’s first uranium mine. We have signed additional exploration agreements with the Chinese firm Sino Uranium and the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto. Under the guidance of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, we are developing a nuclear energy program, which would reduce our dependence on costly imports of oil and gas. A domestic nuclear reactor, provisionally planned to be built in the south, could supply up to a third of our country’s energy. But that is only the first step. The large amount of electricity it is expected to generate would allow us to power desalination plants, providing affordable water and thus achieving two goals at once.

  Jordan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA). We are more than just a signatory, in fact; we have committed to cooperating fully with these organizations, with complete transparency. We want to be a model of how to develop a nuclear energy program.

  In 2009 I gave an interview to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, saying that Jordan intended to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and adding, “I personally believe that any country that has a nuclear program should conform to international regulations and should have international regulatory bodies that check to make sure that any nuclear program moves in the right direction.”

  The nuclear power issue is particularly sensitive in the Middle East. Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, continues to refuse to join the NPT or to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. The international community has taken little or no action to pressure Israel to joint the NPT or to open its facilities for inspection. Lately, the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program has become a global concern, as the international community is adamant on preventing Iran from developing its uranium enrichment capacity, fearing that its real intentions are to develop a military nuclear program. Israel’s “privileged” nuclear position has led public opinion in the region to again point to double standards in applying international law.

  Our nuclear program is not seen in that controversial context. Jordan’s credibility as a force for peace in the region and the transparent approach to developing nuclear energy in cooperation with international organizations and compliance with international standards have won our program the endorsement and support of the international community.

  As important as negotiating trade agreements, reforming our educational system, boosting our domestic industry, and reducing our energy dependence have been in putting Jordan on the path of sustainable economic growth, sometimes our economy has been boosted in less expected ways.

  In 1988, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas came to Jordan to film scenes for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They were accompanied by the stars of the film, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. My father asked me to meet them when they arrived in Aqaba and to take them to Petra, eighty miles to the north, where they would begin filming. Built by the Nabateans over two thousand years ago, the ruins at Petra are among the most spectacular ancient monuments in the world. Spielberg thought the massive temples, carved from living rock, would be the perfect location for the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, where the movie’s final scene takes place.

  I was an army officer at the time, and my father offered to take Spielberg, Lucas, Connery, and Ford to Petra by helicopter so that they could view the dramatic scenery from the air. I got the job of pilot. As we were strapping ourselves in, my copilot leaned over and, pointing to Sean Connery, said in Arabic, “Who’s that guy? He looks familiar.”

  “That’s Sean Connery,” I told him. “He played James Bond.”

  “Right,” my copilot said with a chuckle as we took off. “We’ll show him who’s the real James Bond!”

  We flew low out of the airport, barely clearing a fence at the end of the runway, and headed north up the valley toward Petra, hugging the ground. After about twenty minutes, Spielberg, his knuckles white from holding on to the seat, leaned over and asked if we really had to fly so low.

  I decided to play along with my copilot’s joke. “Sir,” I replied, “we could go higher, but we are flying along the Israeli border, and there’s no telling what they might do. . . . Of course, if you are willing to take the risk, no problem.” Spielberg nodded, and we increased our altitude a nudge and flew a little higher.

  We landed near the ruins, and the cast and crew soon set to work transforming the narrow, winding gorge that opens onto Al Khazneh, a temple carved out of the valley’s sandstone wall, into the Temple of the Sun, the film’s mythical hiding place for the Holy Grail.

  I was not able to attend the movie’s premiere the following year, but my brother Feisal was there. He met Harrison Ford and introduced himself, saying, “My brother was the helicopter pilot who flew you up to Petra.”

  “That guy scared the crap out of us!” Ford said.

  Years later, after my father died, I met Steven Spielberg again, and he still remembered that ride. “Why did you do that to us?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, “sooner or later I figured you were going to make a film about helicopter pilots. And you would have remembered those two crazy pilots in Jordan!” Many other movies, including Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Hurt Locker, and The Mummy Returns, have been partially filmed in Jordan since Spielberg’s Last Crusade.

  Spielberg and I remained in touch, and when I became king I approached him for help in developing the Jordanian film industry. Thankfully, he had forgiven my youthful antics, and he introduced us to the dean of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, the oldest film school in America. With help from USC, we founded the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Aqaba, a graduate school devoted to teaching filmmaking. The institute opened in September 2008 with its first class of twenty-five students.

  Creative industries such as film, media, and information technology hold the keys to Jordan’s future economic development—even if the path toward growth will sometimes be a little unexpected.

  We can now look back on eleven years of progress. Opening up our economy to global trade has allowed our exports to rise sixfold between 1998 and 2008, the rate of unemployment to fall from 15.3 percent to 12 percent, and GDP per head to double. A UN survey in 2007 ranked Jordan 6th highest in the world in attracting foreign investment relative to the size of its economy, up from 132nd in 1995. The 2008 annual survey by the World Economic Forum rated Jordan the 48th most competitive economy in the world, ahead of Italy, Russia, Brazil, and India.

  Jordan has not been immune from the impact of the global economic crisis. Growth slowed dramatically and the 2009 budget deficit, which stood at about 8.5 percent of GDP, is almost unprecedented in the history of the kingdom. Like countries the world over, Jordan had to take tough measures in 2009 to reduce its spending. But unlike many other countries, we did not have the means to offer financial stimulus packages that could get the economy moving again. We had to review policy, improve our investment environment, and ensure
a more efficient management of the economy.

  The global economic crisis was a challenge, but it also offered opportunities. Many international companies, especially those based in the rich neighboring Gulf region, were examining means to reduce their costs and improve their competitiveness. I was determined to put Jordan on their radar screens. Our highly educated professionals, strong infrastructure, strategic position in the heart of the region, and access to some of the biggest global markets and an open business environment give us a valuable competitive edge. So we began identifying specific opportunities that could attract investors and modernizing our economic legislation. In the past when I met investors, I would tell them that Jordan was a great place to invest. Now I can refer to specific projects and point to clear advantages to encourage companies to do business in Jordan.

  We have embarked on a number of “mega-projects” to secure our food and water needs and develop our infrastructure and our position as a regional energy and transport hub. The government has been directed to better manage these vital resources. But political events have sometimes hijacked our economic growth. The only thing that can bring lasting prosperity to our region, replacing bombs and bullets with tourists and entrepreneurs, is a lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the root cause of much of the violence and instability in our region.

  My dream is that we will link the economies of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan in a common market—patterned on Benelux in western Europe. We could combine the technical know-how and entrepreneurial drive of Jordan, Israel, and Palestine to create an economic and business hub in the Levant. The potential for joint tourism is massive, as is that for foreign investment. The possibility for cooperation is immense. The Israelis are world leaders in agriculture but lack land and workers. We could work together to make the desert bloom.