The World Bank has maintained its forecast for Jordan’s economic growth at 2.7% in 2026 and 2.9% in 2027, unchanged from its April projections, despite the impact of the war, regional developments, and disruptions to energy and trade markets that have prompted the bank to lower its forecasts for several economies across the region.
اضافة اعلان
The unchanged growth outlook reflects a degree of resilience in Jordan’s economic prospects. The World Bank expects the economy of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan region to contract by 2.1% this year, following growth of 3.3% in 2025.
According to the World Bank’s October 2026 Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan Economic Update, monitored by Al Mamlaka, its growth forecasts for Jordan in 2026 and 2027 remain unchanged from April. However, the bank lowered its 2026 forecast for Jordan by 0.1 percentage point from its January estimate, while raising its 2027 forecast by the same margin.
The report noted that oil-importing economies in the region, including Jordan, have demonstrated greater resilience than oil-exporting economies. Growth among this group is expected to accelerate to 4.3% in 2026, compared with 3.9% in 2025.
The World Bank estimated that Jordan’s economy grew by about 2.8% in 2025, before slowing slightly to 2.7% this year and then accelerating to 2.9% next year.
The slight slowdown expected in 2026 was attributed to lower tourism revenues and higher energy import costs, while strong domestic economic activity and trade through Aqaba are expected to offset some of these pressures.
The bank expects Jordan’s growth to strengthen moderately in 2027 as regional trade and transport conditions improve.
According to the report, the impact of the war is transmitted to oil-importing countries mainly through higher energy, food, shipping and insurance costs, putting pressure on external accounts and inflation. Strong domestic demand in several of these economies is helping to limit the impact of these pressures.
As an indicator of improving economic activity per capita, the bank expects Jordan’s real GDP per capita growth to rise from 1.8% in 2025 to 2% in 2026 and 2.1% in 2027.
On prices, the report forecasts inflation in Jordan at 2.5% this year before easing to 2.3% in 2027, compared with 1.8% in 2025.
The bank also projects a gradual reduction in the fiscal deficit, from 5% of GDP in 2025 to 4.6% in 2026 and 4.3% in 2027.
On the external accounts, the current-account deficit is expected to reach 7.3% of GDP in 2026 before narrowing to 5.9% in 2027, compared with 5.6% in 2025.
Regarding air traffic, the report showed a stronger recovery in cities outside the Gulf region, including Amman, where air arrivals had returned to or exceeded pre-conflict levels by late August, along with several other regional cities.
Looking ahead to future growth drivers, the World Bank said Jordan has performed relatively well in innovation and economic integration despite gaps in digital infrastructure. It also placed Jordan among lower-middle-income economies that perform above the average for their income group in the maturity of digital government services.
The report said Jordan is working to strengthen its position as a regional technology hub and is already applying artificial intelligence technologies in the education and health sectors to support learning and enable preventive screening and diagnosis in remote areas.
According to the bank, Jordan is strategically focusing on developing its artificial intelligence ecosystem through research and development, business environment reforms, capacity building, and expanding public-sector applications to address constraints related to capital and market size.
The report cited data showing that 113 Jordanian companies were active in the artificial intelligence technology market as of July 2026. It also noted that Jordan’s strategy aims to increase the number of AI researchers by 30%.
Source: Al Mamlaka
