AMMAN: Jordan's foreign currency reserves grew by 41.5 percent in 2009, the Central Bank of Jordan announced on Wednesday.
The CBJ put the country's reserves of foreign currencies at the end of 2009 at $10.9 billion, compared with $7.7 billion from a year earlier.
The present reserves are sufficient for covering the country's imports for 7.5 months compared with 5.8 months at the end of 2008, the CBJ said.
To be on the safe side, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) advises countries to have foreign currency reserves that cover imports for at least three months.
Economists attributed the jump in Jordan's foreign currency reserves to the transfers of about 1.5 Jordanian expatriates working mainly in the Gulf region.
The wide differential of about 4 per cent between the interest rates of the dinar and the US dollar also helped to attract deposits in the national currency and the departure from the greenback, they said.