AMMAN — A
quarterly index published by Ipsos suggested that “confidence in the future of
the economy has dropped by 6.6 percentage points during Q4” along with a drop
in the confidence in job security and future investments.
اضافة اعلان
Musa Al-Saket, a board member of the
Amman Chamber of Industry, said that the reason for the confidence drop is due to inflation
rates, unemployment, and budget deficit. “Before COVID-19, we had an inflation
rate of 0.8 percent that has now risen to 2.4 percent. The unemployment rate
was 19 percent whereas now it stands at 25 percent. The budget deficit was
JD700 million in 2018 and this year it is JD1.75 billion.”
Ipsos’ Jordan Consumer Sentiment Index showed that
Jordanian people’s top three concerns are unemployment, high cost of living, as
well as poverty and social inequality.
“Things are not going to get better unless we
implement drastic changes to the whole economy in terms of macro and
microeconomics,” said Saket.
According to
Ipsos’ quarterly index, 65 percent of people described the current economic
situation as negative, and 61.5 percent said their personal financial situation
was fragile.
Former minister of state for economic affairs
Yusuf Mansur believes that “the decrease in trust is due to certain decisions that
the government announced then withdrew. Unfortunately, there have been unclear
and under-revised decisions, as well.”
When asked about the decrease in unemployment rate
by 7 percentage points, Mansur responded that “this improvement is expected; it
is an adjustment after the difficult period, but unemployment rates are still
high. The number of companies exiting the market is still increasing too. The
banks were not lending money to small businesses, rather lending money to large
businesses that didn’t need money.”
53.1 percent of
Jordanians said that the current status of the economy is weak, and 28.7
percent viewed it as neither strong nor weak.
However, with
COVID-19 infection rates at their highest in the Kingdom with the new Omicron
variant, experts predict it the pandemic would cause further economic damage.
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