The Jordanian Minister of Finance, Mohammad Al-Ississ, expected the budget deficit to increase by one billion dinars (1.4 billion dollars) from what the government expected at the beginning of this year, due to the emerging Coronavirus crisis.
Al-Ississ explained that "the expectations we are facing say that the deficit until the end of the year will increase by more than one billion dinars, at least," considering that "increasing the deficit is a huge blow to the local economy," noting that "global financial markets warned of the current crisis”, explaining that "the size of the financial loss for each closing day is 100 million dinars (140 million dollars), knowing that most of the income derives from the tax, and the government's tax collection reached a third during the crisis."
Al-Ississ added that "Jordan pays salaries for public sector employees and debt service, monthly, up to 600 million dinars (about 840 million dollars), which is a very high cost," considering that "the cost of dealing with corona in the next stage is between 80 and 140 million dollars”, and we hope it will not exceed $240 million. "
He concluded that the government purchased oil derivatives with a financial value of 23 million dinars (32 million dollars), indicating that these derivatives are for the mobilization of strategic stocks.
The Jordanian parliament approved last January the Kingdom's budget for 2020, with spending amounting to 12.5 billion dollars, and an unprecedented deficit of 1.8 billion dollars.
Source (New Arab newspaper, Edited)
