Jordan Times
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Jordan advancing on foreign
investment front - JIB
By Mohammad Ghazal
AMMAN - Jordan is advancing in its efforts to enhance its investment environment
and the government is taking serious measures to bolster investment
competitiveness climate in the Kingdom, Jordan Investment Board (JIB) CEO Maen
Nsour said Wednesday.
Referring to the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook for the year 2008, JIB head
said the report ranked Jordan 34th among 55 countries compared with 37th in
2007.
Jordan is the only Arab country covered by the report, which also studied Turkey
and Israel, Nsour told The Jordan Times in an interview yesterday.
JIB chief, who stressed the significance of the report, said: "The IMD World
Competitiveness Yearbook is the world's most renowned and comprehensive annual
report on the competitiveness of nations, ranking and analysing how a nation's
environment creates and sustains the competitiveness of enterprises."
Nsour said the criteria used to compute the rankings are grouped into four main
factors divided into sub-factors. The main factors are economic performance,
government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
In terms of economic performance, the report indicated that among Jordan's
points of strength is the direct investment flows inward ratio to GDP, in which
Jordan ranked 2nd among the 55 countries recording 22.82 per cent in 2008,
compared with 14.07 per cent in 2007.
Meanwhile, Jordan was 6th among the countries covered by the report in terms of
direct investment stocks inward ratio to GDP in 2008, Nsour said.
On government efficiency, the report indicated that points of strength include
ease of doing business that is supported by regulations and that personal
security and private property are adequately protected, Nsour said.
Regarding business efficiency, a point of strength was that the report indicated
that the value system in Jordan supports competitiveness.
Strong interest by the youth in science and availability of qualified engineers
in the labour market were also among the points of strength in Jordan when it
comes to the infrastructure factor.
Challenges in the year 2008 included enhancing the effective and efficient
partnership between the public and the private sectors, accelerating the
implementation of the social security system reform programme, improving the
linkage between the educational system and market needs and directing economic
growth towards sectors that create more job opportunities, according to the
report.
"There is always room for improvement and we have a huge potential for
progress," Nsour commented.