Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A global forum on reconstruction in conflict-ravaged Syria, Iraq and Yemen opened here on Sunday with Jordanian, Arab and international delegates attending.

The gathering, held in a partnership with the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, the Engineering Offices Commission and the Jordan Construction Contractors Association, will tackle reconstruction mechanisms and tools as well as governance of reconstruction funds.

It also includes technical sessions on arbitration contracts, recycling of destruction waste and the Jordanian construction sector's role in the reconstruction process.

In opening remarks, Minister of Public Works and Housing, Sami Halasa, stressed the importance of the forum as an opportunity for these countries to reconstruct what the wars and conflicts had destroyed.

He reviewed the major development Jordan's construction sector had made and the partnerships it had forged with its peers in other countries, which will be of great help to join the reconstruction process in the war-ravaged countries.

Arab Thought Forum Secretary General, Mohammad Abu Hamour, said that concerned entities had estimated the cost of reconstruction in the countries plagued by wars and conflicts at about one trillion dollars. Other international estimates, he added, had put the reconstruction cost in Syria alone at $900 billion.

Hamour reviewed the economic and social impact of the regional conflicts on Jordan, which hosts a large number of refugees from these countries, urging the Jordanian private sector to build alliances with its peers in the Arab countries to join the reconstruction as recommended by officials in donor nations.

He stressed the importance of finding the necessary financing for reconstruction and the participation of Arab banks and reconstruction funds in this endeavour, citing two funds set up in Iraq and Syria in recent years.