AMMAN, 5 September 2004 — Jordan’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a rate of 7.2 percent in the first half of 2004, compared with 2.8 percent in the same period of last year, Planning Minister Bassem Awadallah announced yesterday. “This is an indication that the Jordanian economy has surmounted the offshoots of last year’s US-led war on Iraq,” he said. He also attributed this result to the “economic rectification policies” that were adopted by Jordan over the past years under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Awadallah put at 4.9 percent the inflation rate average in the first six months of the year, compared to 1.6 percent in the same period of 2003. Economists blamed the rise in the inflation rate on a series of measures taken by the government to shore up the Treasury’s finances, including fuel price hikes and sales tax increases. “We expect the Jordanian economy to show better performance in the rest of the year, thanks to the subsiding effects of the Iraq war and growing national exports due to the rising demand for Jordanian goods and improving competitiveness of Jordanian products,” Awadallah said.