The Middle East

reverses in 2009 and 2010. These, in turn, had followed major gains in the years leading up to the global down-turn, with the net figure standing at just over JD300m ($422m) in 2008. “As a small market, we really bene-fitted from foreign investment funds targeting phos-phates, potash and others,” said Tarek Yaghmour, the vice-president and head of research at Capital Invest-...

Located in the heart of the Middle East and with access to the Red Sea, Jordan is well positioned to serve as a regional logistics centre – a role the country’s leaders are working to expand. In the 1990s the trans-port sector, along with communications, accounted for 0.47% of total real economic growth, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF...

Home to three local Islamic banks and one foreign insti-tution, Jordan has seen strong growth in Islamic bank-ing in recent times. While the sharia-compliant segment remains small compared to that of some other Islam-ic states, interest is building in its development, with legislative reforms helping to broaden and deepen the country’s Islamic...

A US offer to back Jordanian bond issues may help low-er the kingdom’s borrowing costs as well as boost con-fidence in the country’s securities, which has been dented by regional instability that has slowed econom-ic growth. On March 22, 2013, during a visit to Amman, US President Barack Obama said his administration would work with Congress to...

In 2012, faced with a range of major economic chal-lenges, the Jordanian government began implement-ing a new macroeconomic programme. This aimed at reducing the kingdom’s vulnerability to external shocks, particularly in the realm of energy prices and supply, while also seeking a fair distribution of the burdens that the fiscal deficit was...