Exports by land dropped 13% in third quarter of 2020 — Transport Ministry

AMMAN — The percentage of goods exported from the Kingdom by land during the third quarter of this year decreased by 13 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to figures issued by the Ministry of Transport.

The quantities of goods exported during the third quarter reached about 4.5 million tonnes, compared with about 5.2 million tonnes during the same period in 2019.

 “This is a 68 per cent improvement from the second quarter this year, in which only 2.6 million tonnes were exported,” said Ministry of Transport media officer Ali Odeibat.

The movement of transit goods also decreased by 25 per cent compared with last year, with a decrease from 1.9 million tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes. However, the third quarter witnessed a 4 per cent increase from the second quarter’s 1.4 million tones, he said.

“The trucks’ movement entering and leaving the Kingdom also witnessed a decline during the third quarter,” said President of the Jordanian Truck Drivers Association Mohammad Dawoud.

Dawoud said that since the outbreak of the pandemic, the road transport sector has been “suffering from challenges, the most important of which is the quarantine of drivers and the cost of the PCR test”.

“Doing a PCR test also clashed with the decision to cancel the back-to-back system in a number of border centres, which exposed many workers in the sector to great losses,” he added.

According to association numbers, more than 6,000 Jordanian trucks have stopped working out of the 22,000 operational ones, which Dawoud attributed to the “measures imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus”.

Ministry of Transport indicators showed a 25 per cent decrease in the number of trucks entering through border centres during the third quarter of the year compared with last year.