The Launching of Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority came with the vision to transform the zone into a world class Red Sea business hub and leisure destination enhancing the quality of life and prosperity of the community through sustainable development and a driving force for the economic growth of Jordan and aiming to enhance the quality of life for citizens and visitors particularly in Health, Environment and Safety disciplines.

Jordan became a formal member in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in April 2000, where then the concept of Risk Analysis was endorsed in September 2000 as the baseline step for quality transformation of food safety control system applied in Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority which is considered the business incubator of Jordan and the only
Water border of entry to the kingdom covering over 75% of the imports, of which 25% are food Products .

Risk management system :

Risk management system is considered a new concept in the food safety arena which was called upon by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) through the Codex Alimentarius .The system depends on classifying the health risks associated with service provided which allows proper use of resources depending on the priorities and thus increasing the level of consumer confidence and maintaining the national health protection standard.

The implementation of risk-based system on food imports arriving via Aqaba Port was launched back in year 2002 setting a success story on a national level and thus further implemented on all other national borders of entry. A set of reforms were carried out including infrastructure, automation, training and e-documentation building the first automated national archiving database system of food imports.

The system has proved capability to unify criteria between various national control agencies, accuracy of documented information and announced procedures, ability to expand laboratory analyses for high risk foods and speed in clearing out the consignments files.

Thereon, the necessity to apply risk management concept on the whole food chain became more important particularly on the food compliance and inspection system for the domestic market.

Criteria of Risk Management Model for Domestic food :

The risk-based system for control of domestic foods, developed since early 2004, was based on categorizing food businesses in groups based on their health risks with the guidance on international best practices and models as well as scientific chemical and microbial risk assessment references, particularly the Irish model, with the addition of the common regionally known food activities, taking in account the climate, cultural background and population habits. This has resulted in the creation of three main food activities categories as shown below :

The system has also incorporated the design of a Unified form for food activities inspection, accounting to around 960 establishments up to date, utilizing quantifiable evaluation tools for each parameter in a shape of scores cumulating to 100% and distributed as follows :

Accordingly, the food activities categories were merged with the score attained from the inspection report to determine the level and frequency of inspection for a certain food establishment as shown below :