{
  "id": "R43202",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R43202",
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  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
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      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 424429,
      "date": "2013-08-23",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T20:59:44.149132",
      "title": "Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) in Jordan and Egypt: Background and Issues for Congress",
      "summary": "Congress passed the Qualifying Industrial Zone (QIZ) program in 1996, as an amendment to the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement (USIFTA) implementing legislation. This narrowly focused program provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for goods produced with certain levels of Israeli and Jordanian; Israeli and Egyptian; or Palestinian content. The purpose of the program was political (to further the Middle-East peace process) and economic (to support economic growth in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region). After the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration, and six years later, the Obama Administration, undertook broader initiatives to expand regional efforts to promote peace, democratic transitions, and economic development in the larger Middle East region through trade and investment. Thus, the QIZ program may now be viewed against a backdrop of these more comprehensive programs. \nThe QIZ program carries some provisions beyond those in most other U.S. trade preference programs. On one hand, it requires cooperative production. On the other, it includes more relaxed content requirements and more generous tariff benefits on certain goods than most trade preference programs, and permits U.S. input to reach the USIFTA 35% content requirement. Jordan joined the QIZ program in 1997, and Egypt joined seven years later in 2004. Three years after Jordan opened its QIZ program, it entered into a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. The FTA eliminated tariffs between Jordan and the United States without requiring cooperative production, leading to a decrease in the importance of the QIZ program in U.S.-Jordan trade. \nInitially, the QIZ program was a driver of economic growth for Jordan. In 13 QIZs along the border with Israel, factories primarily funded by Asian investment and predominately populated by guest workers from Asian countries co-produced apparel products with partner operations in Israel. For four years, the program contributed an amount equivalent to 30% of Jordan\u2019s total GDP growth. Today, the United States is Jordan\u2019s second-most important trading partner (after Saudi Arabia). While Jordan\u2019s QIZ program has been largely superseded by the U.S.-Jordan FTA, its QIZs remain the source of many of its exports to the United States, as well as to other countries. \nFor Egypt, the QIZ program was not as transformational as it was for Jordan and contributed, at best, an amount equivalent to 2% of its GDP growth for two years. The country already produced and exported apparel and textiles from Egypt\u2019s own cotton woven into fabric in Egyptian factories. The United States was and remains Egypt\u2019s top trading partner. President Obama recently expanded the QIZ program for Egypt, naming more zones and including all present and future producers in those zones as eligible for QIZ tariff benefits. \nIf Congress were to explore additional trade options for stimulating MENA intra-regional and world trade, it might move to reexamine the purposes and effects of the QIZ program. Options for the 113th Congress include possible consideration of the QIZ program in the context of larger policy options relating to U.S.-MENA relations and MENA trade and development.\nThis report does not address the current turmoil in Egypt. For a discussion of this issue, see CRS Report RL33003, Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations, by Jeremy M. Sharp.",
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        {
          "source": "IBCList",
          "id": 2212,
          "name": "Import Policy"
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}