Aqaba Port relocation plan ‘on track’

AMMAN (JT) – The plan to relocate and upgrade Aqaba Port is going according to schedule, an official said.

Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority Chief Commissioner Mohammad Saqer told a press conference in the port city on Tuesday that his agency and its development arm, the Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC), are committed to handing over the land of the port in the current location to the developer, who bought it three years ago, in March 2013.

Saqer was quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, as saying that the relocation of Aqaba’s old port project to the southern part of the city is on the right track, pointing out that the implementation of the new port will be supervised by the ADC and funded by domestic financial resources.

The plan reflects a strategy that seeks to give the town of Aqaba an exclusive identity as a tourist and commercial destination, while industrial projects will be located outside the Red Sea resort.

The project’s first phase, which is scheduled to conclude by 2014, will include infrastructure works and services for around 300,000 square metres of the project. It will also include 263 residential apartments and 151 semi-villas, in addition to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, according to Petra.

In 2008, Al Maabar signed an agreement with the government under which the company acquired 3.2 million square metres of land in Aqaba for $500 million.

jordantimes