AMMAN — The agricultural sector will see a
"qualitative" leap that was initiated this year following an increase
in the ministry's earmarks, with a capital expenditure amounting to JD30
million for the first time,
Minister of Agriculture Khaled Hneifat said in an
interview with the Jordan News Agency, Petra, on Saturday.
اضافة اعلان
As a key future step, the minister referred to a
comprehensive
agricultural development plan, which aims to increase the gross
domestic product of the agricultural sector during the next four years.
The plan, he noted, will create about 8,000 permanent
jobs annually, which in turn will contribute to reducing poverty, promoting
development, and further empowering rural women who are active in the
agricultural sector through support to their production projects.
On the sector's investment opportunities, Hneifat said
that about 36 investment opportunities will be offered in the two basins of
Al-Hammad and Al-Sarhan, which are not water drained, and can supply
agricultural projects with approximately 25 million cubic meters of water.
The investment should be within the ministry's
parameters to support the sector for the purposes of exporting, manufacturing
or cultivating crops that "do not adversely affect Jordanian farmers, who
are on top of the ministry’s priorities," according to Hneifat.
Investment will be made in the food industries by
establishing three factories in the southern Jordan Valley, namely for drying tomatoes
and producing tomato paste, he noted.
On the mechanism of supporting
Jordanian farmers,
Hneifat pointed to an increase in the budget of the agricultural lending
portfolio, which rose in 2021 from JD70 million to JD100 million, adding that
JD35 million were disbursed in the form of interest-free agricultural loans,
which created about 700 permanent jobs.
The same program will be implemented in 2022, but with
intensified monitoring to provide assistance to "actual and
successful" projects and to avoid supporting any ghost enterprises, or
fake livestock possessions, which constituted 40 percent of farmers who
received undeserved aid by misleading the ministry, as they did not own
livestock, he said.
Hneifat added that focus will be on
"successful" projects that provide job opportunities in the farming
sector, especially projects that are managed by young farmers, who received
about JD5 million of the ministry's allocations, noting that those projects
"demonstrated leadership and success and created multiple job
opportunities.”
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