The Jordan clothing sector continues to suffer from the repercussions of the coronavirus crisis despite winter, Christmas and New Year seasons and holidays.
As per Asaad Qawasmi, a representative of the clothing, garment and jewellery sector at the Jordan Chamber of Commerce, this year the sector has not seen such activity, sales volume is the lowest ever.
Consequently, retailers have not been able to pay their dues and have become greatly worried about their returned cheques, the thing that reflected negatively on wholesalers.
The representative noted that the crisis and the measures taken to combat it such as the closures, curfews and lockdowns have together caused “grave losses” to merchants, a lack of liquidity and increasing operational costs and bills.
The Kingdom’s imports of clothing are charged 47.5 per cent in customs, income and sales taxes and service fees, whereas footwear imports pay 58 per cent in fees and taxes on customs declaration, according to Qawasmi.
The Kingdom’s winter imports of clothing and footwear have dropped by 25 per cent this year, reaching a total of JD65 million compared with JD85 million last year, he noted.
