AMMAN — The Central Bank of Jordan
(CBJ) on Thursday raised all its benchmark monetary policy rates by 25 basis
points, effective as of March 26, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
اضافة اعلان
The bank's Open Operations Market Committee
held a meeting to discuss the performance of the national economy, the latest
monetary and banking developments in the Kingdom, and their repercussions on
the expected performance for the current year, in addition to global economic
developments, the performance of financial markets, and interest rate trends.
To preserve the Kingdom's monetary
stability and the Jordanian dinar's appeal as a savings instrument, the
committee decided to keep interest rates unchanged on a JD1.4 billion
CBJ-sponsored refinancing program, which targets 10 sectors. The rates for this
program stand at 1.0 percent for Amman-based businesses and 0.5 percent for
borrowers in the rest of the Kingdom. The bank also extended the program until
the end of March 2024 due to its importance in supporting the gradual recovery
of the Jordanian economy, creating more job opportunities, and ensuring funding
for the targeted economic sectors on soft lending terms.
The committee also decided to keep interest
rates for another JD700-million credit line targeting small and medium
companies, professionals, and craftsmen at less than 2 percent, and for a
period of 54 months, including a grace period of up to 12 months.
The decisions also aim to restrain
inflationary pressures in light of the rising inflation rate in the Kingdom in 2022,
which has reached 4.2 percent after standing at 4 percent in January and
February.
The committee stressed the solid
performance of all monetary, banking, and economic indicators in the Kingdom,
according to the latest available indicators, most importantly data on the
foreign reserves of the Central Bank of Jordan, which have maintained their
high level of $16.7 billion and are sufficient to cover the Kingdom's imports
of goods and services for a period of 7.3 months.
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