His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday visited a pioneering factory in Karak, currently ranked second in the world for its production of chalk and exporting to more than 70 Arab and foreign markets, besides meeting around 99 per cent of the needs of the local market.

His Majesty’s visit to honour the factory and its workers is part of his support for entrepreneurs, innovation and excellence.

Salah Oqbi, the owner of the Jordan Chalk Manufacturing Company, told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, on the sidelines of the Royal visit that he has always received the needed government support since he started the project early last decade. “Whenever I sought assistance from government institutions as a young man who had an idea for a new project, I found all the support I needed, especially that I chose my area, classified as one of the poverty pockets, for it,” Oqbi said on Thursday.

He also chose the Karak region because, as an engineer, he found that it had large deposits of top-quality chalk that was non-toxic, making it attractive to sophisticated importers, including the EU.

Set up in Elalia village in the Mujib area between Madaba and Karak, approximately 90km south of Amman, the factory currently provides jobs for around 80 people, mostly women from the same village.

During the visit, the King honoured the factory workers and expressed his appreciation for such projects, which help improve the living standards of Jordanians and provide them with jobs.

To start the project, Oqbi obtained a JD30,000 loan around 10 years ago from the Development and Employment Fund with the assistance of the Enhanced Productivity Centres project (IRADA) office in the southern Governorate of Karak.

Oqbi said the loan helped him import the required machinery from Britain to start production in 2003. For operations, he relied on local workers who had been trained at the Vocational Training Corporation. He managed to pay back the entire loan in one year, in light of the high revenues, he said.

Local residents working at the factory said the success provided them with jobs after years of unemployment.

Launched by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, the IRADA project seeks to promote entrepreneurial spirit and a culture of self-reliance among Jordanians.