AMMAN —
Central Bank Governor
Adel Sharkas said on Friday that Jordan’s strong
commitment to economic reform has boosted the international community’s
confidence in the Kingdom’s economy and enabled it, for the fifth time, to
reach an agreement with IMF experts who conducted its performance review.
اضافة اعلان
In an interview
with
Jordan Television, Sharkas stressed that the positive results of the
review send the clear message that this most important international financial
institution has confidence in the soundness of Jordan’s economic approach and
the stability of its macroeconomic, financial and monetary situation.
According to
Sharkas, the review’s promising results led the fund to raise its outlook about
the performance of the Jordanian economy for this year to 2.7 percent; the
figure stood at 2.4 percent after the last review.
This, he said,
was possible even though the
IMF had reduced its forecast for the global
economic growth due to continuing imbalances in supply chains, geopolitical
developments, and uncertain global conditions.
Sharkas also
said that Moody’s decision to raise its expectation for Jordan from stable to positive,
while fixing the credit rating at B1, is yet another testimony to the strength
and stability of the national economy, even more encouraging when seeing that
the credit rating company downgraded its rating of many countries around the
world.
Sharkas said
that the national economy is on the right path toward recovery from the
repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic; it achieved a 2.2 percent growth
rate during 2021, while in the first quarter of 2022 it recorded a growth rate
of 2.5 percent.
He added that
the growth rate rose to 2.9 percent in the second quarter of the year, across
all economic sectors, and especially so in those more seriously affected by the
pandemic, such as tourism, transportation, and manufacturing industries.
This, he said, indicates
that these sectors were able to restore the momentum for growth; what’s more,
this positive performance came despite the state of uncertainty that the world
is experiencing today as a result of inflation and the
Russia-Ukraine war.
Sharkas stressed
the importance of the economic modernization vision, which is a
cross-government roadmap that should promote the economic performance during
the next 10 years.
He indicated
that the inflation rate in the Kingdom remains at moderate levels, despite the
inflationary wave that the world is experiencing. It reached 4.1 percent during
the first 10 months of this year, which is lower than the inflation rate
prevailing in many developed countries.
He noted that
the measures taken by the government contributed to alleviating inflationary
pressures during the first half of the year. Among the measures: adopting cost
caps for the transportation of imported goods, for the purpose of calculating
taxes and customs duties, stabilizing the prices of oil derivatives until the
end of April 2022, maintaining the cost of public transport, and stabilizing
bread prices despite the rise in wheat prices globally.
Regarding the
banking sector situation, Sharkas stressed that it is sound, solid, able to
withstand shocks, and of efficiently manage risks, as a result of maintaining
high levels of capital and liquidity.
According to
him, banking sector indicators showed improved performance during 2021, an
improvement that continued during the current year, increasing the balance of
total credit facilities by 7.7 percent during the first three quarters of this
year, to reach JD32.3 billion, and increasing deposits by 5.8 percent, to reach
JD41.8 billion.
Sharkas also
stressed the safety and strength of the Jordanian dinar, backed by high foreign
reserves at the
Central Bank, which currently stand at $16 billion. He stressed
the Central Bank’s full commitment to linking the Jordanian dinar to the US
dollar, and assured that the bank has the tools needed to maintain the local
currency’s stability and the attractiveness of savings in Jordanian dinars.
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