Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) data showed on Sunday that foreign exchange reserves grew 1.5 percent in January compared to the end of 2017.

Jordan's foreign reserves stood at $12.44 billion at the end of January compared with about $12.25 billion at the end of 2017. The foreign reserves in Jordan have been negatively affected since the beginning of 2016 after a slow growth in expatriate remittances, tourism revenues and foreign investment.

A recent report published by Jordan's Petra news agency showed that many sources of foreign currency had grown in the past year, while external donations declined.

Foreign grants fell by 15 percent in 2017 and total foreign aid this year amounted to $3.6 billion, including regular grants, loans and grants donated for Syrian refugees, added the report.

The report pointed out that tourism revenues in Jordan rose during the last year by 12.5 percent compared to 2016.

Foreign workers' remittances reached 2.4 billion Jordanian dinars in 11 months last year, while exports of the country rose by 1.5 percent, imports rose by 5.4 percent, and trade deficits increased by 9.7 percent during 11 months of 2017, the agency said.

Jordan is struggling to curb the fiscal deficit and on January 16 it decided to raise the price of subsidized bread and impose new taxes on many goods and merchandise in order to reduce the public debt of about $35 billion.

While the Ministry of Finance began last month to "subsidize cash" to low-income citizens to compensate for the rise in prices by $38 per year for each member of the family.