AMMAN – The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board  will discuss on Friday Jordan’s request for $2 billion financial assistance, according to an official at the lending institution. 

On July 25, the IMF announced that the Jordanian government and the fund’s staff, have reached an initial deal known as ad referendum, or staff-level, agreement on a request for a 36-month stand-by arrangement (SBA). 

The request for a $2 billion loan to support the country’s economic reform programme should be approved by the executive board.

Masood Ahmed, IMF director for the Middle East and Central Asia, will talk at a teleconference call after the executive board decision about the programme in Jordan as well as on the fund’s engagement in the Middle East and North Africa, the IMF official said. 

The economic reform programme endorsed by the government in recent weeks include stimulating the Kingdom’s economic growth rate from the current level of 3 per cent to gradually reach 4.5 per cent at the end of the programme in 2015. 

The programme also seeks to gradually reduce the budget deficit after grants to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the programme from this year’s 6.5 per cent.

The three-year reform policy will also work to bring down the inflation to around 3 per cent. 

A gradual reduction in the losses of the National Electric Power Company to become capable of covering the production cost by the end of 2015 is a key pillar of the programme, which also aims at  reducing the current account deficit (as a percentage of the GDP) with the grants to reach 4.3 per cent by the end of 2015.