Jordan resumed land border traffic with Syria on Sunday after a one-month shutdown after new regulations were applied to prevent truck drivers from spreading the new coronavirus in the kingdom, officials and businessmen said. They said the government had imposed a back-to-back policy. handling of goods to ensure that Syrian, Lebanese and other truck drivers enter the kingdom at a social distance from Jordanian customs officials.
Please visit our Coronavirus Engagement site here for the latest updates. Officials said in mid-August they had to close the crossing, the main gateway for goods from Lebanon and Syria to the Gulf, after dozens of infections among border officials linked to a spike in cases in neighboring Syria. Before the decade-long confrontation in Syria, the Nasib-Jaber Passage was also a transit address for daily truckloads of goods between Europe, Turkey and the Gulf in a multi-billion dollar annual industry. The shutdown affected a company that had already been downsized due to the effect of COVID-19 and the Caesar Act, the toughest US sanctions to date that went into effect in June and prohibited foreign corporations from trading with Damascus. “We have suffered millions of dollars in losses as a result of the closure,” said Mohammad al Daoud, president of the Jordan Truck Owners Association, which represents more than 17,000 trucks. The country’s other crossings with Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Palestinian territories have only been open to advertising products since a closure in March to stop the pandemic. The Syrian government said 70 trailers carrying, usually new products, entered Jordan on Sunday, adding goods in transit to the Gulf and Iraq markets. While the crossing point was closed, Syria’s only border crossing generally operated with Lebanon, which itself has no other functional land borders. Lebanon has also been hit hard by the shutdown. It is based on the passage of land links with all other countries because its only other border is with Israel, with which it has no connection. “This passage is an economic lifeline for all of our land exports,” said Ibrahim al Tarshishi, director of the Lebanese farmers’ association.
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