The figures from the Jordanian Central Bank showed that foreign reserves decreased in the first two months of this year by 2.6 percent to reach $15.49 billion, compared to $15.91 billion registered at the end of 2020. The slowing growth in remittances, the decline in tourism income, and the decrease in foreign investment have put further pressure on Jordan's foreign exchange reserves.
According to the Jordanian Central Bank, the kingdom's tourism income fell by 76 percent by the end of last year, to one billion dinars (1.4 billion dollars). Unemployment also increased to 24.7 percent during the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to 23.9 percent in the previous quarter and 19 percent in the last quarter of 2019. The World Bank had expected that the number of poor people in Jordan would increase due to the effects of the Corona pandemic, indicating that the percentage of people who live on less than 1.3 dinars per day ($1.83), which is the global extreme poverty line, will reach about 27 percent this year. It also expected the number of people living on less than 2.25 dinars a day to rise to 19 percent.
The Jordanian government approved the laws of the general budget and government units for the fiscal year 2021, after the royal decree was issued about them and they were published in the official gazette.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
