AMMAN — The negative impact of the Syrian crisis on Jordan’s economy will remain for many years to come, a senior economist said on Sunday.
Khalid Wazani, a leading economist, said the Kingdom’s economy was already in trouble in 2011, before the start of the Syrian crisis, but the burden increased after hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
Wazani’s presentation was made at the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Knowledge Forum during the launch of a “Proposed Study on the Needs of Displaced Syrians”.
“Regardless of the amount of aid that the country is receiving to compensate for hosting Syrian refugees, the impact of the Syrian crisis on Jordan’s economy will stay huge,” Wazani said, adding that there are no serious talks among stakeholders about saving the Kingdom’s economy from the impact of the Syrian crisis.
He noted that each Syrian refugee will increase the burden on Jordan’s budget by $3,000 and the annual burden for hosting one million refugees will exceed $3 billion.
“No one will be able to measure this impact on the infrastructure or education until after 10 years or more,” the expert argued, explaining that the quality of education will be deteriorating as a result of having crowded classes.
He also indicated that the population growth rate has increased threefold, from 2.2 per cent to 6.6 per cent because of the refugee influx.
The number of Syrian refugees registered with the UNHCR in Jordan is 560,000, which constitutes 8 per cent of the country’s population and there are more than 500,000 Syrians not registered as refugees, Wazani noted.
Of the total number of registered refugees, only 125,000 are in refugee camps, and the rest are in host communities, which adds further strain on the infrastructure and affects employment opportunities for Jordanians.
As for the age category of the Syrian refugees, 80 per cent of them are less than 35 years old and 40 per cent are under 11.
“According to an unofficial assessment, the United Nations statistics on the number of persons displaced by the conflict in Syria are possibly underestimated by 30 per cent,” said the study developed by Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Consulting (TAG-Consult).
“The total cost of supporting these displaced persons is around $5.4 billion each year and represents a significant strain and burden on regional, social and financial structures,” TAG-Consult said in a statement distributed on Sunday.
The study showed that there are 12 million displaced Syrians, including the internally displaced and those in host countries.
“Those figures were in contrast to figures issued by various UN agencies which estimated the number of displaced Syrians to be only 8.7 million,” the study said, adding that these figures are likely to continue to rapidly increases as a result of the ongoing crisis and because of the natural birthrates among the displaced population.
The difference between the UN and TAG-Consult projection was explained by TAG as that while the UN accounts for registered and waiting-to-be registered displaced Syrians, “TAG-Consult’s methodology accounts for all displaced persons including those who have not attempted any kind of registration with UN agencies”.
It added in a statement that TAG-Consult is expected to soon release a proposal under the title of “Friends of the Displaced Syrians” within and outside Syria.
“The document will highlight the numbers of displaced, as well as the average cost per capita, the annual total costs and the impact on host communities,” the statement said.
