Omar Salah, a Jordanian businessman, also speaks of the related issues of economy and peace. "A Marshall Plan could do far more than military efforts to bring stability and better prospects to this region," he says. Salah has built factories in an industrial zone in Irbid, Jordan. Factories in the zone supply underwear to Victoria's Secret and Ralph Lauren and electronic parts to Motorola Inc. under a free-trade agreement with the United States.   more »

Departure of Arafat will be a blessing

Jordanian-Palestinian businessman Omar Salah may be little known in the West, but his grandparents were 1948 refugees from Ramallah who settled in Jordan and became a successful business family in that country.

For more than a decade Salah has maintained business relationships in Israel, and he was responsible for creating the so-called Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) in Jordan and Israel, a successful joint Jordanian/Palestinian/ Israeli venture whose goods qualify for duty-free trade in the United States. His story provides an important example to both sides that the conflict need not carry on without end.

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“Jordan was taken for granted by Israel. The peace treaty could have brought many more mutual benefits,” said Omar Salah, head of Jordan's Century Investment Group, the first firm to engage with Israeli companies in large-scale projects in the face of widespread public hostility.

Salah believes Israeli intransigence held back many businessmen from seeking opportunities with Israel.

“Businessmen were not able to come out of the cold, and dealing with Israel was hidden because the political environment did not allow them to speak out about the advantages and potential of business,” Salah said.

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Kellogg Recanti International Executive MBA Program 2bVentures recently teamed up with Jordanian businessman Omar Salah, who purchased the New Horizon textile factory in Ofakim this summer. The company agreed to promote TaskMail, a communication program developed by Salah to increase office productivity. Wurtman and Salah have not been able to meet since the violence flared three weeks ago. "We used to meet two or three times a month. I would drive two hours to Amman or he would meet us in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Now, we are forced to meet in Europe," explains Wurtman. "The recent unrest has not affected our personal relationship. But it has affected our freedom to travel. It is shocking how things changed overnight."

Economic Development and Integration as a Catalyst for Peace: A "Marshall Plan" for the Middle East

Mr. Omar Salah is Founder and Chairman of Century Investment Group, a Jordanian public shareholding company which specializes in the creation of industrial joint ventures with foreign multilateral or multinational corporations. Century Investment Group is the first company to pioneer joint projects with Israel.

    Among many other honors, Mr. Salah was named a global leader for tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1998 and was awarded the Albert Einstein medal for high technology in March, 2001.

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Headstrong - Arjun Malhotra honored with Albert Einstein Technology Medal

Among the sixteen Albert Einstein honorees in 2001 are Walt Disney Internet Group Chairman Steve Bornstein, Bessemer Venture Partners Managing General Partner David Cowan, Beneventure Capital founder Gil Amelio (formerly National Semiconductor Chairman and CEO and Apple Computer President), ATT.com President Tsvi Gal, Innovation Investment's Eric Greenberg (founder and former chair of Viant, Scient, and 12 Entrepreneuring), JUMP Investor Founder & President Randall Kaplan, Century Investment Group's Founder, Chair & CEO Omar Salah, and MyWeb-Inc.com and WizOffice.com's Founder & CEO Danny Toe.

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Sporn and Omar Salah, a 33-year-old Jordanian engineer, are putting together the first venture fund to invest in Internet service providers, software producers, and technology companies in Arab countries. Called Crescent Capital Partners, the fund’s goal is to raise $30 million from American and Middle Eastern venture capitalists to invest in "incubation projects, Internet infrastructure, and existing successful companies and New Economy companies in the Arab world," says Salah from his home in Amman.

To date, Crescent has raised more than $12 million with the help of backers such as David Cohen, managing director of Perot Systems U.K., and Conrad Morris, a British venture capitalist. Israeli high-tech guru Joseph Vardi, who founded ICQ, sits on the board of advisers.

Salah hopes the Crescent Capital fund will become a catalyst for the nascent Arab high-tech industry and will help foreign companies seeking access to the Mideast market. It could also connect foreign companies with potential local partners and startups.

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Eizenstat Remarks, Council On Foreign Relations

A second example is the Qualified Industrial Zone initiative, what we call the QIZ. On the public side, the U.S. worked creatively and intensively with Jordan and Israel to create this industrial zone in Irbid, which was presided over by Secretary Daley and Secretary Albright with Minister Sharansky and Mr. Mulki and others.

This will ensure that the industrial zone in Irbid will be granted the right to export duty free to the United States. All private investments, all products manufactured will come into the United States duty free. It is in fact like a one-way free trade agreement.

On the private side, Omar Salah, an energetic and visionary Jordanian entrepreneur and chairman of the Century Investment Group, took risks for peace -- and continues to take them -- that have resulted in a unique and profitable cross-border commercial partnership with Israeli and U.S. firms. Omar Salah had the vision. But it required the public sector to make it happen as well.

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BBC NEWS | Business | Israeli tycoon urges help for Palestinians

Oded Eran, Israel's former ambassador to Jordan, believes Wertheimer's plan has a fighting chance.

"It's certainly an ambitious program and I totally support it," says Mr Eran, who was at Tefen to consult with Wertheimer on some of the plan's logistics.

Another supporter is Omar Salah, a Jordanian businessman who has built factories in Jordanian industrial zones.

"A Marshall Plan can do far more than military efforts in terms of bringing stability to the region," Mr Salah told the Los Angeles Times earlier this year.

Palestinians are more cautious.

They are concerned that the trust which briefly characterised Israeli-Palestinian relations before October 2000 has been irrevocably severed.

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BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | US-Jordan trade agreement

Jordanian businessman Omar Salah's company, Century, is an exception.

The trade agreement is an achievement for King Abdallah

Set up in the wake of the peace treaty, Century is involved in a number of joint ventures with American and Israeli companies at Jordan's northern industrial zone in Irbid.

It has grown in the space of only a few years from a company employing 60 people to one employing 5,000.

But the cold nature of the peace with Israel means that more Far Eastern companies are now being attracted to Jordan than Israeli ones.

Mr Salah hopes that today's free trade agreement with the United States will help offset the damage caused by the climate of hostility in the region by improving Jordan's ability to attract more investment from Europe and the Far East.

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BBC NEWS | Programmes | Crossing Continents | Jordan feels Mid-East tensions

But the wider problem is that anti-Israel feeling in Jordan is now running so high that few people are prepared to admit that the peace treaty has brought any economic benefits at all. And those Jordanians who do business with Israel are mostly unwilling to talk about it openly.

One of the few who will is Omar Salah. Even before the treaty was signed, when such trips were still technically illegal, Salah, then in his late 20s, made a pioneering trip to Tel Aviv to seek new partners. He cold-called Israeli firms who were so amazed to hear from a Jordanian that they invited him round immediately.

Today, Salah owns a textile factory in Israel. And he's joint owner, with Israeli partners, of several plants in the north of Jordan.

Salah has also played a key role in the creation of QIZs - Qualifying Investment Zones. QIZs are areas within Jordan from where goods can be exported duty free to the United States, provided there's been an element of Israeli involvement in their manufacture.

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But the wider problem is that anti-Israel feeling in Jordan is now running so high that few people are prepared to admit that the peace treaty has brought any economic benefits at all. And those Jordanians who do business with Israel are mostly unwilling to talk about it openly. One of the few who will is Omar Salah. Even before the treaty was signed, when such trips were still technically illegal, Salah, then in his late 20s, made a pioneering trip to Tel Aviv to seek new partners. He cold-called Israeli firms who were so amazed to hear from a Jordanian that they invited him round immediately. Today, Salah owns a textile factory in Israel. And he's joint owner, with Israeli partners, of several plants in the north of Jordan. Salah has also played a key role in the creation of QIZs - Qualifying Investment Zones. QIZs are areas within Jordan from where goods can be exported duty free to the United States, provided there's been an element of Israeli involvement in their manufacture.   more »

Omar Salah, Founder & Chairman, Century Investment Group (CIG) Amman, Jordan. Omar Salah is the founder, Chairman and major stockholder of Century Investment Group, a Jordanian, public shareholding company, which specializes in the creation of industrial joint ventures with foreign multi-national corporations. Born in Saudi Arabia in 1967, Salah attended Pangbourne College in England. He continued his education at Purdue University (Indiana) where he earned both   more »