JD500,000 fund to support productive projects in Maan

AMMAN — The government on Wednesday announced a new programme to reduce unemployment in the southern governorate of Maan. 

Under an agreement signed between the Planning Ministry and the Development and Employment Fund (DEF), JD500,000 will be allocated to productivity projects in Maan, some 220km south of Amman. 

The money, according to Planning Minister Ibrahim Saif, will be extended to DEF by the ministry through its productivity-enhancement programme, and DEF will relend it to productivity projects in the governorate. 

The low-cost loans, based on Sharia (Islamic law), will carry an annual interest rate of 3 per cent, Saif explained, and beneficiaries will also be able to benefit from a 12-month grace period and a maturity period of eight years. 

The financing ceiling will be up to JD25,000, he added. 

The agreement stipulates that applicants should be unemployed Jordanians who live in Maan and are under 40 years old. Applicants should also have academic qualifications of no less than a secondary education degree. 

Saif said the new programme is part of the government’s efforts to reduce poverty and unemployment across the Kingdom. 

DEF Director General Abdullah Freij said the fund, through financial support from the Planning Ministry, extended loans worth JD23 million over the past few years to productivity projects across the country that have created around 9,000 jobs. 

Freij noted that the share of beneficiaries in the badia and rural areas represented nearly 48 per cent of the overall loans, and 60 per cent of the loans went to women. 

Citing DEF’s achievements in 2014, he said loans worth JD25 million were extended to over 6,000 projects, with only 21 per cent going to Amman.

“The fund’s objective is to offer financing to projects outside the capital,” Freij said.