Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - (Jordan Times) -
January 21, 2009
By Mohammad Ghazal


Jordan was ranked 51st globally and 6th regionally on the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, showing an improvement in its international standing and a slight regionally compared to the 2008 index.

This year’s index, carried out by the Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, covers 183 countries measuring 10 specific freedoms such as trade, business, investment and property rights freedoms.

Jordan’s economic freedom score rose by 1.3 points in 2009, making the country’s economy 51st globally compared to 58th in the 2008 index. Regionally, Jordan dropped from the 5th place it earned last year.

“It is a great improvement for Jordan at the international level… however, Jordan dropped regionally as neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt were better in terms of improving the business environment,” key economist Yusuf Mansur said Wednesday.

The index indicated that there was a substantial increase in business freedom, moderate increases in trade freedom and government size, and a slight decline in freedom from corruption.

It also indicated that the country has relative strengths in terms of monetary stability, strong property rights, and low tax rates on individual and corporate income. Inflation is moderate, and the government has succeeded in phasing out direct subsidies of many goods, according to the survey.

However, Jordan’s weaknesses included large government size and non-transparent regulatory obstacles to investment, according to the index.

Stressing the need to look into the methodology of the index, Mansur said: “One has to study the methodology of the index to know where it erred and where it did not.”

“The index states non-transparent regulatory obstacles to investment were among the weaknesses, which is incorrect because Jordan has a good to very good regulatory body for investments. Jordan also has an investment promotion strategy and everything is spelled out,” he said.

He added that the index indicated a slight decline in freedom from corruption while the latest report by Transparency International stated that Jordan has improved in terms of its fight against corruption.

Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perception Index, released in late September 2008, indicated that perceived corruption has lessened over the past year in the Kingdom.

Jordan was ranked 47th out of 180 nations on the corruption index, improving from 53rd place the previous year.