While much media attention was focused on the regional economic conference taking place in the Jordanian capital of Amman this week, another economic conference was taking place in Jerusalem.
Some Israeli officials said the scheduling conflict took the steam out of the Jerusalem Business Conference, which drew businesspeople and representatives from investment firms from 44 countries.
The officials called for better coordination in the future to prevent the overlap of meetings.
Other officials refuted this view.
Joseph Vardi, Israel’s coordinator for regional development, told Israel Radio that investment deals totaling hundreds of millions of dollars were in the making by Sunday’s first working session in Jerusalem.
The proximity between the Israeli and Jordanian capitals – less than an hour’s flight separates them – enabled many delegates and officials to attend both meetings.
This included Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who addressed the Jerusalem conference’s first working session Sunday morning and later attended the opening session of the Amman conference.
Among the development projects initialed within the framework of the Jerusalem business meeting was a draft agreement for a $150 million project between Israel and the United States to build an electricity plant in the Negev.
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