Our Last Best Chance_ The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril - King Abdullah II [85]
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.