Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Imad Fakhoury, Sunday discussed with a World Bank official agreements for three loans the bank plans to extend to the Kingdom to support the state budget, startups and medium-size enterprises.

Two of the loans will be channeled to support the budget and one will be used to establish a national entrepreneurship fund to support emerging startups and medium enterprises, according to a ministry statement issued following Fakhoury's meeting with Vice President of the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa, Hafez Ghanem.

It said the minister and the WB official discussed technical assistance provided by the WB to Jordan in areas of business-doing environment reforms, poverty assessment, management of public investments and public-private sector partnership.

The minister thanked the bank for fulfilling the pledges it made in the 2016 London donor conference and said the WB is one of Jordan's largest partners in the overall development and reform drive.

Fakhoury noted that the bank responded to a request raised by the Kingdom regarding the introduction of soft and innovative financing instruments that are designed to assist countries affected by crises and conflicts in the region such as Jordan and Lebanon.

He explained that soft financing helps make available loans at minimum interest rates under long repayment periods of up to 40 years.

Ghanem emphasized the importance of the WB-Jordan partnership and said the WB Group is committed to supporting the region's countries, particularly Jordan and Lebanon, against the backof the Syrian crisis.