The Japanese Industrial Group, Sumitomo, has announced that Jordan will become a distribution and manufacturing centre for auto giant Toyota, supplying spare parts and industrial equipment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with an investment of about $1 billion, a government official said.
Nabil Rumman, president of the Jordan Free Zone Investors Association (FZIA), told Petra that his agency had been instrumental in attracting Japanese capital to the Kingdom, the largest of its kind in the region.
He said that Toyota has named Jordan as a regional hub that will serve the Iraqi market, the largest regional importer of the group's products, as well as the Libyan, Syrian and Gulf markets.
Rumman also said that the agreement will create more than 1,300 jobs in the city of Zarqa.
Sumitomo, one of the largest global industrial groups, has joined other global investors in the Free Zone, including German motor oils producing company Fox, said Rumman, who described the Japanese investment as "an added qualitative value" to the Zone, in terms of investment volume.
FZIA acting CEO Marwan Al Qudah said that the Board of Directors had approved leasing the Japanese group a 25,000-square-meter plot of land to set up a center that will provide service to countries in the MENA region.