Ammon News -

A senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said Jordan, in the past two years, has managed to overcome several crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the hike in interest rates globally, and finally the Russian-Ukrainian war and its impacts on food prices.

Director of IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department, Jihad Azour, said the Jordanian economy is expected to grow by 2.4 per cent this year, and the pace of growth will rise next year to reach 3.1 per cent and 3.3 percent in 2024.

Azour gave his remarks in response to queries from the Jordan News Agency (Petra) in a press conference held Wednesday in Washington, to discuss the "World Economic Outlook" report for the Middle East and Central Asia region.

Azour added that the Jordanian government was able to achieve growth by continuing its reform approach.

"At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first program of the IMF was established, which aimed to raise the levels of spending on social affairs to enable Jordan to confront the pandemic and Jordan's levels of capabilities and readiness were raised, whether in terms of health services or in terms of dispensing vaccinations, which contributed to improving levels of economic growth," Azour said in the press conference.

He noted that Jordan was able, despite the difficult economic conditions, to achieve economic stability and continue to carry out structural reforms to resume the desired economic recovery for this year.

On unemployment rates, Azour pointed out that Jordan, like many other countries in the world, saw an increase in unemployment rates due to the pandemic, which went over 24 per cent, compared to 19 per cent expected next year, which requires the continuation of structural reforms to increase production capacity and enable the private sector to play its role to secure more jobs.