Jordanian Finance Minister Mohammad Al Ississ confirmed that "the expectations of the International Monetary Fund indicate the contraction of the Jordanian economy in 2020 for the first time in decades."
Al Ississ said in an interview with the "Countries in the Spotlight" team of the "International Monetary Fund" that "the expectations are cause for concern, because Jordan has previously managed to achieve an average growth of 2 percent," noting that "we were able to transform the plight of Corona into grant, as we responded to the crisis with urgent measures at the level of fiscal and monetary policy, coupled with the strength of economic fundamentals, including the debt sustainability and the integrity of the financial system.
He also expected that the slowdown in global economic activity would be an obstacle to the Kingdom's foreign direct investment, transfers of workers abroad, trade, and tourism currently frozen by 100 percent, stressing that "tourism constitutes 10 percent of GDP in the pre-pandemic period, except for the presence of more than 250,000 daily workers, affected by the general closure, and a large number of businesses facing cash distress."
It should be noted that despite the expectations of the "International Monetary" last April, it showed the growth of the local economy by 2.1 percent during 2020, but that the contraction will be within the Fund's expectations in the report of the world economic outlook in next October.
Source (The New Arab Newspaper, Edited)
