Ammon News -

The Cabinet, in its session held on Sunday, headed by Prime Minister, Dr. Bishr Khasawneh, has approved the inclusion of tourist guides under the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ)'s program to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to confront the Covid-19 pandemic.

Through the program, loans will be granted to tourist guides at a value of JD5 thousand each, similar to the lending terms applied on the rest of the tourism sector.

Under the decision, loans will disbursed in the form of payments as salary allowances to tourist guides, aimed to mitigate the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Cabinet also agreed to amend its previous decision related to group and individual loans and reschedule individual loans provided by the Development and Employment Fund (DEF) aimed to exempt some categories from the remaining profits, and reschedule their loans, in a way that contributes to reducing the financial burden on borrowers in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, the Cabinet approved an amendment targeting the equivalency bylaw of General Secondary Education Certificate Examination (Tawjihi) level for the year 2020.

Aimed to regulate the equivalency criteria to certificates issued by schools in their countries of origin, the holder is required to provide a residence proof that he/she spent a period of not less than two academic years in the target country under the new amendements.

The amendments also come to lay the equivalency foundations for certificates issued by non-Arab schools in non-Arab countries.

Moreover, the Cabinet approved an amended bylaw of the Cultural and Artistic Movement Support Fund for the year 2020, which aims to activate the roles of cultural bodies and civil society institutions, enable them to implement their development projects in the culture and art fields, achieve the required attention to talented and creative people, contribute to the development of media content, and support Jordanian TV drama.

The Cabinet also approved an amended bylaw governing the administrative organization of the Ministry of Culture for 2020 for the purpose of integrating the Royal Cultural Center (RCC) under the Ministry’s umbrella, which is in implementation of the government’s drive to restructure government institutions.
Based on this decision, the Cabinet rescinded the RCC administrative organization bylaw for the year 2020.