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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The chairman of the Dubai property giant Emaar says it is the right time to invest in Jordan, despite the difficulties the country faces given the influx of more than 800,000 refugees.

Addressing the World Economic Forum in Jordan, Mohamed Alabbar said the country’s economy is growing in spite of the “chaos” in the surrounding region.

“The numbers are working… I think it’s the right time now to make that investment,” he said.

“If Jordan has grown at about 4 percent now... imagine what will happen once all these issues are settled in the region.”

Emaar Properties – which built the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower – has interests in the Dead Sea resort, Amman and Aqaba.

Alabbar spoke on Friday at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa 2015.

Fellow panelist Suma Chakrabarti, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, said the bank plans to make more investments in Jordan over the next decade.

But he said he would like to see this happen in conjunction with the region’s sovereign wealth funds.

“We are going to take more equity stakes in companies here over the next five to 10 years, and I would love to see sovereign wealth funds come in with us to do that,” Chakrabarti said.

Jordan has launched a program called ‘Jordan Relaunched’, designed to thousands of jobs and boost infrastructure developments, as it looks to achieve economic growth of 7.5 per cent by 2025.

*Al Arabiya