- AMMAN: Jordanian Finance Minister Mohammad Abu Hammour on Thursday revealed a deficit budget for fiscal 2011, envisaging the spending of 6.249 billion dinars ($8.83 billion), representing a 6.2 percent rise over this year’s revised spending estimates.
The projected spending involves a deficit of about 1.06 billion dinars, or 5 percent as a ratio of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The deficit is the difference between the projected spending and the sum of revenues estimated at 5.189 billion dinars and foreign grants tentatively set at about 300 million dinars.
Abu Hammour said the 2011 deficit represented an improvement over 2010 and 2009 when the deficit accounted for 5.2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively as a ratio of the GDP.
Jordan’s budget deficit reached more than $2 billion in 2010 mainly due to the fallout of the global financial crisis.
The government was forced to rely on internal and external borrowing to plug the budget gap.
The Jordanian minister predicted further cuts in the budget deficit for the coming couple of years due to what he called austerity measures and more effective tax collection methods recently adopted by the government of Prime Minister Samir Rifai.
The budget estimates, which have already been approved by the Cabinet, should be endorsed by the two houses of Parliament before receiving the king’s consent.