AMMAN — Jordan ranked eighth out of 19 Middle
Eastern countries on a prosperity index published at the end of last year.
The index uses criteria such as security and
safety, personal freedoms, governance and power controls, investment
environment, health and educational axes, infrastructure, and living
conditions.
اضافة اعلان
“In many ways, Jordan is already better than
other Middle Eastern and even some global countries,” where there is armed
instability, insecurity, higher unemployment rates, and more difficult living
conditions, Mohammad Basheer said in response to the Legatum index findings.
This ranking, according to Basheer, does not
invalidate the prevalence of poverty in Jordan, which has lately hit 25
percent, or the labor market issues that indirectly cause a major problem.
Other problems, according to Basheer, include
early and mandatory retirement, which “became a burden, despite the fact that
it should be the opposite, because pensions are insufficient for retirees”,
forcing many to look for new job opportunities, “competing with new people in
the labor market, and thus raising the rate of unemployment among young
people”.
In addition, when it comes to public
financial instruments that affect the overall economy, such as taxes, “all
these indicators are negative, as there are large current expenditures,
indirect taxes at the expense of direct taxes, and an accumulated debt that
grows to cover the escalating imbalance in both expenditures and taxes”, said
Basheer.
Despite this, Jordan’s level of security has
helped it to rise in the Middle East rankings, “even with some corruption in
some of its institutions, because countries like Iraq, Lebanon, and others are
completely engulfed in corruption, and thus their indicators of economic and
social well-being would be severely harmed”, he added.
According to economist Mufleh Aqel, Jordan
deserves to be ranked slightly better in both regional and international
indices “because it outperforms many other countries in the region in terms of
stability, security, freedom of expression, and other factors”.
Although Jordan’s average per capita income
remains low, he sees other factors, such as health insurance, freedoms,
stability, and education, as being among the best in the world.
In terms of investment climate, Aqel says
that Jordan may deserve a low ranking, due to the instability of its neighbors,
but that economic freedom in Jordan is excellent, and that luring international
investors is often the challenge.
Sociologist Hussein Alkhozahe told Jordan News that the index accurately reflects the
reality and is consistent with the periodic studies issued by the Center for
Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, which show that the
deterioration of various services in the country is one of the most pressing
issues confronting citizens and negatively affecting their social well-being.
Alkhozahe also mentioned that poverty and low
economic well-being cause social problems, that 80 percent of retired and
working people earn less than JD500 per month, and that their social lives are
impacted in a variety of ways, the most important of which through marriage. In
Jordan, he said, the average age of marriage for men has recently grown to 31
for men and 27 for women.
Referring to the UN’s World Happiness Index
for 2022, which was released on March 18, Alkhozahe said that Jordan was one of
the least happy countries in the Arab world, second only to Lebanon.
He went on to say that 45 percent of
Jordanian youths want to emigrate, an indicator that the “Jordanian society is
experiencing an issue”, and that such studies throw light on the most pressing
of these issues.
The government should accept the findings of
these studies and try to resolve long-standing issues in order for Jordan to
reclaim its social and economic health, he said.
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