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Syrian-Jordanian medical technology factory boosts small town’s growth

By Camille Dupire - Nov 11,2018 - Last updated at Nov 11,2018

Arabella’s production capacity increased to 2,500 gowns per day following a USAID LENS’ grant (Photo courtesy of USAID LENS)

AMMAN — Two successful business partners in the medical technology field back in Syria, Maen and Fira were compelled to start over when they fled to Jordan after the civil war broke out.

In a fortunate encounter, they crossed the path of Ziad, Maen and Yousef, three well-established Jordanian professionals with rich medical backgrounds. The five men decided to put their expertise together and partner on opening “Arabella”, a factory for medical technologies, a niche field still under-exploited in Jordan.

Driven by an increased demand on health safety and hygiene awareness inside surgery rooms, the new partners aimed to counter the trend of importing medical equipment local hospitals and doctors used to resort to, which imposed extra costs and delays in delivery.

“Establishing the factory was the easy part, but we did face some difficulties later, especially when registering and licensing the company in 2013, as it was the first of its kind here in Jordan,” explained General Manager Yamama Zoubi, adding that “despite the challenges we had formalising the company, the lack of other factories or producers eventually worked to our advantage as demand picked up quickly”.

He said the five businessmen obtained international certifications and started exporting items, such as sterile surgical gowns and drapes for surgical procedures, to other countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq “in no time”.

As demand soared, the partners nonetheless faced a discrepancy between their sole manual sewing line at the factory and the high volume of production needed.

“We had to seek external support to be able to increase our production capacity and respond to all the orders we were receiving,” Zoubi recounted, noting that the team applied for funding from the USAID Jordan Local Enterprise Support Project (LENS), which had previously launched a grant aimed at facilitating local investments.

Part of its support for job creation and micro and small enterprises (MSE) growth across the Kingdom, the USAID LENS’ grant targeted Jordanian companies with Syrian partners seeking to invest, re-invest and/or expand operations, according to a USAID LENS statement.

After receiving the grant, which they believed would contribute to growing Arabella’s production capacity, increase its export ability and hire more workers through the installation of an additional production line, the partners said they no less than “doubled their production capacity”.

Prior to installing the ultrasonic technology — a technique in very high demand in export markets — Arabella used to produce around 1,000-1,300 gowns per day. The new daily shift allowed the production of 2,500 gowns, according to the medical experts, who noted that this also increased their revenue by 30 per cent and expanded their local market share to 70 per cent. 

The factory hired 24 additional workers, mostly women from the local community of Khaldieh.

An isolated yet heavily-populated small town in the northeastern Mafraq Governorate, Khaldieh counts over 46 per cent of its 25,000 inhabitants living under the poverty line, according to USAID LENS. 

The establishment of the local factory greatly enhanced the employees’ living situation and developed sustainable and growing livelihood opportunities for the community.

The five partners now hope to expand Arabella for Medical Technologies’ exporting activities to Syria, the UAE and Lebanon, with the aim of putting Jordan on the regional map of medical technologies.

Launched to encourage the long-term economic growth and development potential of marginalised Jordanian communities through supporting SMEs across Jordan, the five-year USAID LENS project has facilitated investments in local communities like Khaldieh, aiming to make business opportunities more evenly distributed across different governorates and not just in the capital, the USAID LENS website stated.

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