IMF lowers Jordan’s GDP growth projection to 2.9% this year

AMMAN — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has for the third time this year revised its growth forecast for Jordan’s economy, expecting it to grow by 2.9 per cent in 2015.

In May of this year, the IMF projected the Kingdom’s gross domestic product (GDP) to expand by 3.8 per cent this year and 4.5 per cent in 2016. 

In August, however, the fund, in its seventh and final review under the Stand-By Arrangement for Jordan, revised the projected growth rate downward to 3 per cent based on the 2 per cent growth achieved during the first quarter of 2015.

In the second quarter of this year, Jordan’s GDP expanded by 2.4 per cent.

In its World Economic Outlook report issued Friday, on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank annual fall meetings held this year in Peru, the IMF said Jordan’s economy is expected to grow by 2.9 per cent this year and 3.7 per cent next year.

In its report, the IMF indicated that a 4.5 per cent growth rate would be achieved in 2020.

Growth in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to be around 2.5 per cent this year, down from 2.7 per cent in 2014. Next year it is predicted to expand to 3.9 per cent.

IMF director of Middle East and Central Asia Department Masood Ahmed said in a press briefing Friday that spillovers from instability in various countries, such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, are taking a toll on economic growth in the region.

He also cited lower oil prices as another factor that hit regional economic growth.

The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook foresees lower global growth compared to last year, with the global real GDP forecast to grow at only 3.1 per cent, down from 3.4 per cent last year. World GDP growth is expected to rebound to 3.6 per cent next year.