‘Significant strides’ made to cut down investor time, effort through licensing reforms — Hammouri

AMMAN — The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the recommendations of the steering committee on the "Investor Journey" programme, along with a proposal aimed at cancelling licences issued in a number of sectors.  

In remarks following the Cabinet session, Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply Tareq Hammouri said that the "Investor Journey" programme aims to ease procedures for Arab and foreign investors who own small or large enterprises.

The programme incorporates the stages of any investment process regardless of business type, including registration, licensing, inspection and advertising, he said, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. 

The government has replaced a number of licences, including those issued by the Tourism and Education Ministries’ licences for cultural centres, with a system of inspection, monitoring and reporting, Hammouri added.

To cut down on the high number of licences, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply decided to employ only municipal licensing as a first step, to be followed by inspections to ensure efficient functioning of facilities, eliminating the process of prior licensing, which causes delays in the start dates of businesses, Hammouri added. 

"We started with the registration stage and we have made significant strides," he said, highlighting that the Cabinet's recent decisions related to licensing will save time and effort.