Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:
Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons
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 A Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Jordan and the
Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry was signed on 16 of November 2006;
 A Memorandum of Understanding between Jordan Export Development Corporation and the
Egyptian Export Promotion Centre was signed on 16 November 2006;
 Agadir Agreement for an Arab-Mediterranean Free Trade was signed between Jordan and Egypt
was signed on 25 February 2004;
 An Agreement for the Formation of Joint Jordan-Egypt Economic Chamber was signed on 28
October 2002;
 An Agreement in the field of Transport was signed on 28 October 2002;
 An Agreement on Reciprocal Administrative Cooperation for the Purposes of the Optimum
Application of Customs law and Combating Customs Violations was signed on 10 December 1998;
 A Free Trade Area Agreement was signed on 10 December 1998.
6.1.3 Legal framework
Legal basis
Transport corridors are integrated in the Jordanian TTF programme, which has been adopted by the
Government of Jordan. This is also the basis for the institutional framework, as described in Section
At a regional level, a range of bilateral agreements has been established, as indicated in Section
Harmonization of national regulations, standards and procedures
Against the ambition to enhance regional cooperation to support trade and ease border crossing traffic,
there is a clear need to harmonise regulations, standards and procedures. This is recognised by the
Government of Jordan, stating that “different trading policies and regulations need to be harmonized
in order to ease the flow of trade. The national and technical committees for TTF in Jordan are in the
process of drafting a regulatory frameworkwhich encompasses a regional context and that is approved
and supported by all stakeholders and that is either enforced or abided to by regulatory measures.”42
In conclusion, a positive development can be noted as the issue of harmonisation is addressed.
However, the harmonisation process eventually needs to be carried out at regional level, including
Jordan’s neighbouring countries.
Mutual recognition of each other’s inspections, certificates, etc.
In Jordan the concept of a single window (SW) is under development to unify references and
harmonize procedures at centres and border crossings, which would facilitate and ensure work flow.
According to The Government of Jordan’s TTF website, the idea of the SW project has come from a
compilation of selective risk management standards for departments that have a direct relationship
with the Jordanian Customs Department in order to exchange information on customs data
electronically between the department and other parties.43
Again, at national level there is a tendency towards unifying references and harmonising procedures.
However, this is not yet extended to a regional corridor level.
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