AMMAN, 22 February, 2021 (TON): On Sunday, Jordon’s lower house parliament approved the budget that was described as the most difficult in the history of the kingdom.

A majority of MPs backed the draft budget law for 2021 and the budgets for independent public institutions as the country attempts to rebuild its economy from the pandemic.

With an estimated post-foreign aid deficit of 2.06 billion Jordanian dinars ($2.89 billion) or 6.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 2.16 billion dinars in 2020, the law was submitted to the MPs.  

Domestic revenues are estimated at around 7.8 billion dinars before foreign grants, which are expected to reach 577 million dinars, down from the 851 million dinars for 2020.

It is expected that the total value of the expenditure in the 2021 budget will reach 9.93 billion dinars or 31.2 percent of GDP, compared with 9.37 billion dinars or 30.6 percent of GDP in 2020.

Finance Minister Mohamad Al-Ississ said, inflation rates were projected to rise to “reasonable” this year, at 1.3 percent and that he expected a 6.5 percent growth in national exports with the world’s gradual recovery from the pandemic.

Al-Ississ had previously described the budget as “the most difficult for Jordan ever.”

However, according to the report of the World Bank, Jordan’s economy is expected to grow by 1.8 percent in 2021 and 2 percent in 2022.