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Ammon News - Since the beginning of 2022, the Kingdom's foreign trade has been steadily bouncing back from the lows brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, Jordanian Businessmen Association (JBA) President Hamdi Tabbaa said on Tuesday.

Tabbaa said in a statement that upward trajectory of the Kingdom's foreign trade is underpinned in part by its free trade pacts with a number of word countries.

He noted that the JBA has compiled a report on foreign trade for the period 2017-2021, focusing on the effects of economic developments on various foreign trade indicators.

In the first half of 2022, he continued, national exports increased by 45.5 percent compared to the same period in 2021, while imports increased by 38.6 percent, resulting in an exports-to-imports coverage ratio of 44.6 percent.

Since Jordan joined the World Trade Organization, according to Tabbaa, its policies have been geared toward removing trade restrictions and increasing national exports.

Tabbaa noted that Jordan's "diverse" service sector contributed to the country's service trade balance posting a surplus of about USD 2.2 billion from 2016 to 2019.

Exports of services include those related to commerce, tourism, travel, transportation, construction, finance, information technology, and insurance. The largest portion of exports, which totaled USD 2.3 billion in 2020, were trade services.

Tabbaa went on to say that as a result of the pandemic, Jordan's service sector trade balance recorded a USD 500 million deficit in 2020, with USD 2.5 billion in exports and USD 3 billion in imports, as opposed to USD 8 billion in exports and USD 4.8 billion in imports in 2019.

According to the most recent International Trade Centre data, service sector trade exchange fell by USD7.3 billion in 2020, with Jordanian exports falling by USD5.5 billion and imports dropping by USD1.8 billion.

The fertilizers industry alone has unrealized export potential worth USD792 million, the JBA president said, not to mention the 736 million in the chemicals industry, the 576 million in the garment industry, the 506 million in the livestock industry, and the 483 million in the pharmaceuticals industry.