Less than half of Jordanians express confidence in country’s economic performance — poll

AMMAN — Less than 50 per cent of Jordanians said they had confidence in the performance of the country’s economy in 2014, according to results of an opinion poll released Monday.

Conducted by Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies, the poll covered a sample of 1,200 Jordanians from across the country and showed that only 46.88 per cent of respondents believe that the Kingdom’s economy will improve.

The highest rate was in Amman, where 48.6 per cent of the polled sample was positive about the country’s economy, followed by Irbid (47.8 per cent) in the north, Zarqa (47.6 per cent) in the central region, Maan (47.4 per cent) in the south and Mafraq (47.2 per cent) in the northeast.

Almost one-third of the respondents said the country’s economic performance was “fair” in 2014, while 20.8 per cent described it as “bad”.

Almost 60 per cent of respondents said the condition of Jordan’s economy in 2014 was worse than in 2013, while 31 per cent said it did not change, and only 8.6 per cent were optimistic and said it was better than the previous year.

As for expectations for 2015, more than half of the respondents (53 per cent) were pessimistic and said it will be worse than it was in 2014, while 31.6 per cent expected it to remain the same and 15.3 per cent said economic conditions will improve.

Around a third (36.6 per cent) of the polled sample said their family income in 2014 was “fair”, 28.7 per cent described it as low, while 15.2 per cent said it was “very low,” and 19.5 per cent said they generate a very good income.

Meanwhile, 90.1 per cent of Jordanians said goods and commodities are “very expensive”, while 9.3 per cent said it is “medium” and 0.6 per cent said prices are low or very low.

The majority of respondents (74.9 per cent) said prices of goods and commodities increased in 2014 compared to the previous year, 23.8 per cent said they were the same and 1.3 per cent said prices dropped.