Jordan, IFC announce partnership to boost competitiveness, growth

AMMAN — The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, on Wednesday signed three agreements to support private investment in Jordan, increase the country’s competitiveness and open new markets for local firms. 

Under the agreements, the IFC will help Jordan strengthen and simplify a range of existing legislation — and help introduce new reforms — in support of private sector businesses, making it easier for them to trade, grow and create jobs. This is especially important as Jordan works to recover from the economic effects of the COVID 19 pandemic, according to a statement from the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.

The agreements were signed by the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nasser Shraideh, on behalf of the Jordanian government, and IFC’s country manager for the Levant, Abdullah Jafri.

Shraideh said that these agreements will strengthen the investment climate in Jordan, supporting the country’s business environment and competitiveness, both regionally and globally, and helping government efforts to speed economic growth and recovery.

He added that the agreements aim to reduce the costs for businesses by rationalising registration and licensing procedures, simplifying procedures for issuing building permits in the capital, and improving competitiveness in the main sectors of the Jordanian economy by improving compliance with international standards to enable Jordanian exports to enter global markets. 

The minister affirmed that the government will continue with economic and financial structural reforms and partner with the private sector to promote economic development, including by increasing the private sector’s role both domestically and internationally. 

Jafri said: “Our new advisory initiatives in Jordan are focused on helping create a more favourable, fair and competitive business environment and reducing the cost of doing business. This will help generate more investments in key sectors, boost exports and job creation, and drive long-term, sustainable economic growth.”

Under the first agreement, the IFC will provide advisory services to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply to implement an integrated business registry system by supporting legal, institutional and administrative reforms, automating sectoral licences and permits through electronic services, and providing an electronic platform for integrating and collecting regulatory procedures through a single point of contact to improve the mechanism followed by registering businesses.

Under the second agreement, the IFC will support the Greater Amman Municipality in simplifying the licensing and monitoring system for buildings within the Greater Amman Region to reduce bureaucracy, cut red tape, and minimise the time needed to issue construction permits. The municipality is expected to establish a virtual one-stop-shop for construction permits in addition to developing the regulatory framework for building control. This is expected to reduce the burden on the private sector and enhance the predictability of the business environment using several tools. 

These tools include developing the legal and regulatory framework for building monitoring, implementing the most effective practices in the use of information, communication and technology applications, enhancing transparency, and reducing compliance costs in the building control system.

Under the third agreement, the IFC will work with the Jordan Standards and Metrology Organisation (JSMO) to facilitate the entry of Jordanian industrial products, including pharmaceuticals, into international markets. The agreement aims to raise the efficiency of Jordanian industrial products and increase their access to international markets by modernising the national quality infrastructure in line with international and regional practices and enhance the level of market control. 

The IFC will offer technical support to the JSMO to modernise its quality infrastructure and its national industrial standards, including those for the pharmaceutical industry, which would help Jordanian companies gain access to international markets.

The agreements signed on Wednesday are part of IFC’s broader strategy in Jordan, which focuses on boosting access to finance for smaller businesses and women entrepreneurs, supporting entrepreneurship and the digital economy, and helping to narrow the infrastructure gap.  The advisory projects will be implemented in partnership with the governments of the Netherlands and Japan, concluded the statement.