Amman. As the national economy seeks to maintain its growth path and strengthen its ability to withstand challenges, the need is growing to activate new engines of growth capable of expanding the production base, creating jobs, and attracting more investment.
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This is not limited to traditional sectors but extends to promising sectors that could become new sources of growth in the coming period, boosting the economy's competitiveness and enhancing its ability to expand and open new markets.
Among these sectors are food and pharmaceutical industries, the digital economy, renewable energy, tourism, and value-added industries, given the opportunities they offer for growth, expansion, increased production and exports, and attracting investment.
Against this backdrop, there is a pressing need to stimulate these sectors and strengthen their competitiveness, enabling them to become effective engines of economic growth in the coming period.
Economists believe the Jordanian economy has promising opportunities to diversify its growth engines by expanding into high-value-added sectors, most notably pharmaceutical, food, and technology industries, information technology and the digital economy, renewable energy, mining, specialized tourism, and logistics services.
These experts told
Al Ghad that these sectors have a greater ability to attract investment, increase exports, and create quality jobs, benefiting from advantages Jordan possesses, including human expertise, geographic location, infrastructure, accumulated experience, and trade agreements, stressing that the challenge lies in converting these advantages into investment, production, and exports.
They called for accelerating the measures needed to stimulate these sectors, chiefly reducing production, energy, and transport costs, easing the investment environment, providing financing, developing skills, boosting research and innovation, and linking incentives to clear indicators covering investment, employment, and exports, allowing the economy to gradually shift toward a model more reliant on productivity, technology, and value added.
Promising Sectors
Most of the promising sectors in the Jordanian economy recorded positive and notable performance this year, foremost among them the food supply, agricultural, and livestock industries sector, which grew by 9% during the first half of the year, an increase of about 41 million dinars.
In the pharmaceutical sector, the Kingdom's exports of pharmaceutical preparations and medicines grew by 17.6% during the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, with their value rising to 147 million dinars, compared to 125 million dinars in the same period of 2025.
Exports of engineering, electrical, and information technology industries rose by about 49 million dinars during the first half of the year, a growth rate of 7.1%, reaching about 745 million dinars.
Meanwhile, tourism revenue rose by 24.9% in July 2026, reaching $926.2 million.
During the first seven months of 2026, the decline in tourism revenue was limited to 0.2%, reaching $4,418.2 million.
High-Value Sectors Capable of Leading New Growth Engines
Economic expert and former member of industry chamber boards, and founder of the "Made in Jordan" initiative, Mousa Al-Saket, said the most prominent sectors capable of leading new growth engines are high-value industries, pharmaceutical, food, and chemical industries, mining, information technology and digital services, medical tourism, logistics services, energy and water, alongside modern agriculture.
Al-Saket explained that these sectors are distinguished by their ability to achieve higher added value, attract investment, and create quality jobs, helping reduce reliance on low-growth sectors, noting that this aligns with the growth engines identified in the Economic Modernization Vision.
He pointed out that Jordan possesses important advantages that qualify it to develop these sectors, foremost its geographic location, human expertise, free trade agreements, in addition to an existing industrial and service base, as well as security and stability. However, the real challenge, according to Al-Saket, lies in converting these advantages into investment, production, and exports.
Al-Saket affirmed that priority should focus on reducing production costs, simplifying procedures, activating the unified investment window, accelerating government digital transformation, and providing accessible financing for productive sectors, alongside offering incentives tied to quality investments, employment, and exports.
He stressed the importance of moving from supporting investors "in theory" to practically removing obstacles facing them, alongside strengthening local content and linking major investments with Jordanian suppliers and industries.
Al-Saket explained that the economic impact of expanding productive sectors could be substantial and multiplied, through attracting new investments, creating better-paying jobs, increasing exports, reducing the import bill, and raising added value within the economy.
Pressing Need to Adopt Integrated Economic Policies to Stimulate Promising Sectors
For his part, economic expert Tarek Hijazi affirmed that the Jordanian economy has promising opportunities to expand a number of high-value-added sectors, enabling them to become new engines of economic growth in the coming years, foremost information technology and the digital economy, pharmaceutical industries, renewable energy, food industries, logistics services, and specialized tourism, alongside technology- and knowledge-based industries.
Hijazi said what distinguishes these sectors from many traditional ones is their ability to achieve higher added value, create quality jobs, boost exports, and attract investment, in addition to their connection to the knowledge economy, technological development, and global shifts in production and consumption patterns.
He added that Jordan has a set of advantages that qualify it to expand in these fields, including specialized human expertise, geographic location, digital infrastructure, and accumulated experience in a number of sectors, in addition to a network of trade agreements that provide access to regional and international markets. However, benefiting from these advantages, according to Hijazi, requires moving from having opportunities to converting them into productive projects, investments, and exports.
He explained that the main challenges include high energy and production costs, difficulty securing suitable financing for projects, complications in some procedures, the need to develop skills matching the needs of new sectors, in addition to limited spending on research, development, and innovation, and the need to strengthen the ability of Jordanian companies to access foreign markets and integrate into global value chains.
Hijazi pointed to the importance of adopting integrated economic policies to stimulate the growth of these sectors, including improving the business and investment environment, simplifying procedures, providing targeted incentives for priority sectors, facilitating access to financing for startups and small and medium enterprises, alongside strengthening public-private partnership, and linking education and training outcomes with labor market needs.
He affirmed the need to focus on supporting research, development, and innovation, encouraging technology transfer, strengthening local content in production chains, as well as developing specialized programs to support exports and open new markets for Jordanian products and services, thereby enhancing the national economy's competitiveness.
