His Majesty King Abdullah II chaired in Aqaba on Sunday the final session of the third Economic Retreat, which was attended by His Royal Highness Prince Faisal Ben Al Hussein and Chief of the Royal Court.

In remarks before the participants, the King said that "we all now have clear goals for the economic and social development and there must be a clear mechanism to implement recommendations that have been adopted during the retreat.”

The king affirmed that Jordan has achieved a lot over the past two years and that it is heading in the right direction towards development. He also stressed the importance of cooperation between the public and private sectors to achieve the interests of all.

His Majesty praised the positive results of the 3rd economic retreat and thanked the participants for their efforts that would contribute in improving performance in the future.

The king also listened to the final communiqué of the third economic retreat which was read by Director of the Economic and Development Department at the Royal Court Dr. Khaled Al Wazani.

It said that the participants agreed on the importance for the government and the private sector to adopt a national policy that is based on adopting research and development to achieve an economic growth, increase competitiveness of the economy and encourage the introduction of the necessary technology for the national economy.

Participants also agreed to adopt a national strategy to develop the tourism sector and enhance its competitiveness depending on the partnership between the public and private sectors.

Regarding the development of human resources, they affirmed that human resources is the basic characteristic for the national economy in terms of competitiveness.

The participants called for building on what have been achieved in this regard by providing education through the concerned institutions, putting relevant mechanisms to activate genuine partnership between the concerned parties, improving access to data and knowledge and increasing national capacities in the fields of research and development.

The participants also underlined the importance of increasing competitiveness of the health sector and adopting a national strategy to restructure this sector based on improving health and medical services through health centers in all governorates.

They also expressed thanks and appreciation for His Majesty the King for chairing this retreat and highly valued his continuous efforts in all fields to achieve progress and prosperity for Jordan.