Hats are a very important accessory in a person's wardrobe. Whether it is worn for style to match your outfit or for climate reasons to keep you warm or cool, hats are needed in many places. Unfortunately, our company should not do business in the country of Jordan. Many factors have contributed in this reasoning mainly income and culture.
The actual size of Jordan is basically the same as the state of Indiana to give you a rough estimation of how big the country is. As of July 2001 Jordan has a population of just over 5.5 million people. The population growth rate is roughly 3 percent, which is one of the highest in the world. Of those 5.5 million people 93% of males can read and write and only 69% of females can read and write. 37% are ages 0-14, 59% are ages 15-64 and only 4% are over the age of 65. The life expectancy in Jordan is 80 for females and 75 for males (http://www.odci.gov).
The Jordanian currency is measured in dinar. One U.S. dollar is equivalent to .7090 dinar. The average annual income for Jordanians is $1,630. That is where the problem exists for our company. A hat costs about 3 dollars to make and we sell our hats for twenty dollars a person will not purchase a hat because that would be a quarter of their monthly income. We could lower our price of hats dramatically so they can afford them but we wont make nearly as much profit as we would if we sold them at $20 per hat in another country that is more economically stable (http://bbc.co.uk/jordan). .
(http://www.geocities.com/petar_ii/Magazine/New/page13.html).
Only 1.15 million people are employed in Jordan. 25% is the official unemployment rate but it is actually around 35% now. Those who are employed are mainly in the fields of agriculture, transportation, commerce, hotel and restaurants, and other services. The wealthiest Jordanians live in the capital of Jordan, which is Amman; they are the extreme minority, which are engineers, bankers, and entrepreneurs.
