As part of the Kingdom’s celebrations of the centenary of the Jordanian state, the Jordanian Businessmen Association held a remote economic session on “The National Economy in the Centennial of the Jordanian State” on Saturday evening, 10/4/2021, which was attended by a large number of Jordanian businessmen and investors from inside and outside the Kingdom.
During the meeting, Hamdi Al-Tabbaa, Chairman of the Jordanian Businessmen Association, presented an overview of the history of the Jordanian economy, pointing out that His Majesty the late founding King Abdullah bin Al Hussein laid the foundations for the establishment of a state of strong institutions.
Al-Tabbaa pointed out that since the establishment of the Jordanian private sector institutions, it has worked side by side with the public sector since the establishment of the Emirate, and the two sectors had a common role in developing the economy and facing the various internal and external shocks that the Kingdom has faced since the establishment of the Emirate. The national private sector was the effective contributor with the government in employment and economic development
Dr. Adnan Badran, the former Prime Minister, indicated that with the end of the first centenary of the state and the beginning of the second centenary, it is necessary to analyze and study the achievements and challenges that have passed during the past ten decades and since the establishment of the emirate, in order to build on the achievements and overcome the difficulties and obstacles during the second centenary.
For her part, Engineer Maha Ali, Minister of Industry, Trade and Supply, affirmed that we stand today in the centenary with pride in front of the many achievements that have been accomplished despite the difficulties, challenges and limited resources.
His Excellency Dr. Ziad Fariz stressed the importance of taking lessons from the first centenary in order to keep pace with the achievements in the second centenary, pointing out that despite the successive crises that afflicted the Kingdom and increased the burden on it, we were able to shift from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector and there is still a lot of effort necessary to reach the stage of self-reliance.
In turn, His Excellency Dr. Jawad Al-Anani, the former Deputy Prime Minister, stated that Jordan had gone through many shocks during the first centenary, but that it had enough flexibility to overcome them and adapt to them. In the thirties, Jordan faced difficulties as a result of the global crisis and went through a state of economic decline. In addition to the 1967 war, the Jordanian economy continued to decline, achieving negative growth in 1971, and many other challenges.
Mr. Ghassan Nuqul, a member of the JBA Board of Trustees, stressed that the Jordanian industrial sector has achieved impressive and proud success during the first centenary, as the industrial sector contributes 24% of the GDP directly and 40% indirectly and employs 240 thousand Jordanians, constituting 15% of the workforce.
Nuqul indicated that the industrial sector faces many obstacles and challenges, including internal and external, which requires to mitigate these obstacles, working on revising the Jordanian energy strategy to increase the competitiveness of national industries to be able to compete at the international and local levels and to move towards establishing a partnership with the private sector and highlighting its important economic role.