Overview: Jordan benefited from increased Arab aid during the oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when its annual real GNP growth averaged more than 10%. In the remainder of the 1980s, however, reductions in both Arab aid and worker remittances slowed real economic growth to an average of roughly 2% per year. Imports - mainly oil, capital goods, consumer durables, and food - outstripped exports, with the difference covered by aid, remittances, and borrowing. In mid-1989, the Jordanian Government began debt-rescheduling negotiations and agreed to implement an IMF-supported program designed to gradually reduce the budget deficit and implement badly needed structural reforms. The Persian Gulf crisis that began in August 1990, however, aggravated Jordan's already serious economic problems, forcing the government to shelve the IMF program, stop most debt payments, and suspend rescheduling negotiations. Aid from Gulf Arab states, worker remittances and trade contracted, and refugees flooded the country, producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting GDP growth, and straining government resources. The economy rebounded in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning from the Gulf, but the recovery has been losing steam since mid-1993. The government is implementing the reform program adopted in 1992 and continues to secure rescheduling of its heavy foreign debt.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $11.5 billion (1993 est.)

National product real growth rate: 5% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $3,000 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5% (1993 est.)

Unemployment rate: 20% (1993 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $1.7 billion
expenditures: $1.9 billion, including capital expenditures of $420 million (1993)

Exports: $1.4 billion (f.o.b., 1993 est.)
commodities: phosphates, fertilizers, potash, agricultural products, manufactures
partners: India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, EC, Indonesia, UAE

Imports: $3.2 billion (c.i.f., 1993 est.)
commodities: crude oil, machinery, transport equipment, food, live animals, manufactured goods
partners: EC, US, Iraq, Japan, Turkey

External debt: $6.8 billion (December 1993 est.)

Industrial production: growth rate 3% (1993 est.); accounts for 20% of GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 1,030,000 kW
production: 3.814 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 1,070 kWh (1992)

Industries: phosphate mining, petroleum refining, cement, potash, light manufacturing

Agriculture: accounts for about 10% of GDP; principal products are wheat, barley, citrus fruit, tomatoes, melons, olives; livestock - sheep, goats, poultry; large net importer of food

Economic aid:
recipient: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $1.7 billion; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $1.5 billion; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89), $9.5 billion; Communist countries (1970-89), $44 million

Currency: 1 Jordanian dinar (JD) = 1,000 fils
Exchange rates: Jordanian dinars (JD) per US$1 - 0.7019 (February 1994), 0.6928 (1993), 0.6797 (1992), 0.6808 (1991), 0.6636 (1990), 0.5704 (1989)

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Jordan on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Jordan Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Jordan Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.