Ammon News - Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Minister Ahmad Hanandeh said Saturday that Jordan has gone a long way towards digitized government services, as more than half a million Jordanians have activated their digital ID to easily and quickly access e-services.

In a panel discussion entitled "future services", which was held at the government forum "The Modernization Vision: a year on", Hanandeh said the digital register will give citizens access to all government services, adding that his ministry is working with government institutions to validate their procedures.

He said Jordan has the talents and expertise in the technology and digital transformation domain, but the public sector currently suffers from a gap in hiring skilled manpower, adding that the ministry, in cooperation with the private sector, will try to bridge that gap.

Commenting on his ministry's key achievements, Hanandeh said the electronic document management system for the financial and banking sector had been officially launched and the payment systems in the Central Bank linked with the sector's document system to facilitate transactions for citizens.

He said promotional campaigns have also been launched to stimulate institutional investment and establish institutional funds and portfolios to invest in the securities market, as videos and publications were introduced and lectures and discussions were held on investment in securities.

Hanandeh also said studies, designs and tender documents on the planned economic city with Iraq were put in place and the tender floated as bids were received for evaluation.

He also said the costs for microfinance companies have been reduced through loans granted by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, adding that the second installment of a loan, about $4.9 million, for selected enterprises has been withdrawn.

The total number of enterprises benefiting from this program stood at 521, including 260 micro enterprises, 150 small enterprises, and 111 enterprises of professionals, craftsmen and the self-employed, he said.

Hanandeh indicated that 5G services had partially been launched in a number of Jordanian cities at an initial stage, and will be available across the Kingdom by the year's end.

Speaking about the key challenges, he said they included stimulating the capital market, the multiple partners providing the same service and who are not ready to link, not enough digital transformation work teams in a number of government institutions and poor regulation of the e-commerce market.