Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The EU signed an agreement with Jordan today to help conduct a national census of the population during 2015, officials said today.

The kingdom will receive a total of 4.7 million euro out of the 22 million euro that is expected to cost carrying out the census.

Officials say the project aims at gathering data on population of the kingdom, their social and economic characteristics including citizens, refugees and expatriates.

The rapid rise in the overall number of population due to increased rate of immigration of Syrian refugees has been seen as a major challenge to local authorities to conduct accurate census, officials say.

The government says more than two million Syrian refugees have crossed the borders during the past four years, although large numbers of asylum seekers are not registered.

EU ambassador to Jordan, Joanna Wronecka said the census will help Jordan deal with economic and social pressure stemming from Syrian refugees and meets the needs of donor countries to have more comprehensive information on status of refugees in the kingdom.

Jordan has been often criticized by donors of inflating number of refugees to receive unjustified amounts of aid, a claim that was prevalent during the arrival of Iraqi refugees after the 2003 war.

The project is expected to require at least efforts of at least 1000 public servants and contractors to conduct the census and carry out relevant public awareness and publicity, said minister of planning Emad Fakhouri.

*ANSAmed