Amman, January 24th, 2021: The Jordan Enterprise Development Corporation (JEDCO) on Sunday launched a program to enhance Services SMEs to export for the first time with a total cost of JD 625.000 and a total investment of JD1.250 million.
JEDCO's CEO, Dr. Bashar Al-Zoubi, stressed in a press release that the commercial and services sector is an important partner, and an essential feature of the national economy, as this sector contributes 54.5% of the gross domestic in the national economy.
He added that the main objective of this program is to expand the base of exporters, increase the rates of exports and open new export markets, according to the governments' priorities, as this is the third program that targets the Jordanian service sector during the years 2019-2020.
Al-Zoubi pointed out that the program, "Supporting Service SMEs to Export for the First Time", which will start receiving applications today Sunday 24th of January 2021, aims to support 25 local SMEs haven't previously exported or its exports did not exceed JD 30.000 and its total revenues JD 70.000 during any of the previous three years and operating in the tourism and hospitality sectors, administrative, financial and legal consulting, training, and health and care, engineering and architecture services and information technology in all governorates.
The program will offer financial and technical grants to build the administrative and production capacities to enhance exporting. The value of the grant does not exceed 25,000 dinars, of which 60% support production capabilities, while the maximum contribution to the program reaches 50 percent of the total costs eligible for an investment of no more than JD 50,000.
Al-Zoubi stressed out that the program is expected to enhance confidence in the local service product internally and externally, penetrate and export services to new markets, implement a group of B2B sectorial missions and network with export support bodies, increase the added value of products and services to beneficiary companies and increase the number of jobs by 100 jobs.
Dr. Al-Zoubi indicated that specialized committees will be formed from JEDCO for the initial administrative evaluation to ensure that the submitted applications to the program are evaluated with complete transparency, and then the requests are evaluated administratively and technically and the top 60 requests are invited to attend specialized training on export and how to make export plans.
The companies that have passed the administrative evaluation attended training courses will be invited to submit the second stage application along with export plan and the project budget, which will then be subject to the second stage of technical evaluation.
Conducting field visits will be done to companies that passed this stage and then choose the best 25 companies to grant.
Al-Zoubi said that JEDCO will implement some of virtual information sessions with some Jordan's chambers of commerce and specialized sectorial associations during the coming days in order to introduce the mechanism of applying for technical and financial support from the program and respond to inquiries.
JEDCO is the national umbrella for economic enterprise development in Jordan, inclusive of startups and entrepreneurships. JEDCO supports the developments of these enterprises and strengthens their competitiveness, in addition to facilitating access to financing. It also seeks to promote and enable policies that create a more suitable environment for their growth.