The Role of Marketing Services Provided by Free Zones in Attracting Foreign Investments. A Case of Jordan

Foreign investments are affected by various marketing services provided by the Jordanian Government to attract investment to Jordan. Therefore, this study examined six of these marketing services, namely: Geographical location selection, concessions and incentives, administrative services ‘Infrastructure facilities and IT services, and logistics services’. Each of these services was statistically analyzed. The researchers chose the Jordanian Free Zones to measure hypotheses. The study population consists of a total of 1363 foreign companies operating in the Jordanian free zones. For the purposes of collecting study data, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to a sample of 430 respondents, and the number of recovered questionnaires reached 408 at a rate of 95%. 13 Questions were excluded due to a lack of data; thus, the total number of analyzed questions were 395 bringing the percentage of the total questions to 92%. The simple random sample method was adopted by choosing the study sample by reviewing investors in the free zone offices. The study found that the variable of concessions and incentives concessions and incentives are the most influencing variables in attracting foreign investment, followed by: Administrative Services, Infrastructure and Information Technology Services, and Logistics Services. The variable for selecting the geographical location is the least influencing on foreign investment. The study recommended that the Jordanian free zones should develop a system of incentives and concessions provided to investors to increase the attractiveness of foreign investment, develop the infrastructure, improve its reality, keep pace with technological development, update data, facilitate administrative services and official transactions, care for logistics, and make continuous improvements.