(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-12 22:16

Sayid, a 31-year-old clothes vendor in Majid Mall in the Jordanian capital, is planning to visit the fourth China Products Fair scheduled for Tuesday in Jordan, and seek for a strategic partner to expand his business in the future.

He told Xinhua that various Chinese products, such as clothes, shoes, handcrafts and hardware, have filled the popular market in the center of the capital.

"Chinese products are so cheap, and at the same time are of good quality. If the goods are competitively priced, customers simply will buy them," said Sayid, who wants to purchase some printing and packing machines during the China Products Fair to open his own "family factory."

As the consumer prices in Jordan have surged in recent years, high-quality but relatively more affordable "made in China" products became popular in the country.

According to the statistics from the International Monetary Fund, Jordan's consumer price index rose 6.3 percent in 2006, the highest increase since 2003.

"Customers will run away immediately if I put a doll costing more than 20 Jordanian Dinar (about 28 U.S. dollars) on my shelves. We are the importers, so we do business with China because of Chinese products' wide variety and reasonable prices," said Hassan, a toy vendor in the Majid Mall.

In his view, besides the attractive prices, the other advantage of the Chinese products is "they are similar to those expensive things (in quality), and sometimes better."  

Among Chinese products on Jordanian shelves are some famous brands like Haier, a leading Chinese household electrical company. Since entering the Jordanian market in 2001, Haier's sales have increased rapidly.

In 2005, Haier officially opened a 50,000-square-meter assembly plant in Jordan's capital Amman aimed to meet the increasing demand in the Middle East and Africa.

A customer in a Haier chain shop told Xinhua that "although the western impression of Chinese products was that the quality was poor, the impression has been improving over the years."

"Actually, there are a lot of good Chinese firms, like Haier and Lenovo and most of the made-in-China products are absolutely good," said the customer, who did not want to be identified.

"'Made in China' products have been more and more popular in Jordan," said Jordan Chamber of Commerce official Riad Saifi, pointing out that 5,000 visitors went to the China Products Fair last year with a contract volume of 8,500 U.S. dollars, up 24 percent from 2005.

According to Jordanian official figures released lately, China is currently Jordan's third largest foreign trade partner, with bilateral business transactions reaching 1.03 billion dollars in 2006, a 13-percent increase compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, Jordanian imports from China in 2006 rose to 963 million dollars, up 15 percent from the previous year.

"Jordan is willing to see more Chinese enterprises and Chinese products could come to Jordan to promote Jordan-China economic and trade cooperation and bring tangible benefits to both people," Saifi added.