Social Security Investiment Fund records positive raise

AMMAN — The total assets of the Social Security Investment Fund (SSIF) went up to JD9,046 million by the end of the third quarter of 2017, increasing by 9 per cent from the JD8,325 million recorded at the beginning of the year, SSIF announced on Sunday. 

By the end of September, the fund achieved investment income totalling JD286.5 million, compared to the JD234.6 million at the end of September 2016, marking a growth rate of 22 per cent, according to a SSIF statement emailed to The Jordan Times.

As for the comprehensive income, which takes into consideration profits or losses of the evaluation and selling of strategic shares and reflects the price change at the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE), it stood at JD264 million at the end of September 2017.

The comprehensive income in the same period of 2016 stood at only JD24 million due to evaluation losses worth JD153.6 million, in addition to losses worth JD56.6 million caused by reducing the capital of the Jordan Telecommunications Company by 25 per cent.

The item related to evaluation profits or losses is an accounting evaluation that directly depends on the performance of the ASE, especially as the fund investments constitute some 11 per cent of the market value of the ASE, according to the statement.

Thus, SSIF comprehensive income registers profits whenever ASE’s performance is high and it may incur losses when ASE’s performance declines.

ASE index in the January-September period of 2017 dropped by 1.47 per cent, compared with a drop of 6.83 per cent in the same period of 2016.