Response to economic fallout from COVID-19 begins to yield results — CBJ

AMMAN — The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has managed to preserve the exchange rate of the dinar and a "comfortable" level of foreign currency reserves during the COVID-19 pandemic, CBJ data showed on Saturday. 

The CBJ used "effective policy tools" to contain the repercussions of the pandemic in cooperation with the “entire banking sector, which led to providing adequate liquidity for companies and individuals alike and alleviated the severity of the economic crisis”, read a CBJ statement.

The bank also launched several financing and monetary programmes aimed at empowering the national economy and enabling companies to cover their operational costs, such as rents and salaries, to help overcome the COVID-19 crisis.

Prominent among these programmes are those targeting small- and medium-sized enterprises with a total value of JD500 million, where loans totalled JD360 million with an average value standing at some JD98,000, the statement said. 

Financial support has been granted through 3,645 loans to affected categories of the crisis, including craftspeople and SMEs, where 43 per cent of the loans was directed for paying salaries with the government incurring interests on these loans. 

The CBJ also implemented the "soft financing" programme, launched in 2012 and targeted economic sectors, with a volume of JD1.2 billion, the statement said, adding that the plan during the pandemic supported 134 companies with a total amount of JD130 million.

As for the national strategy for the financial inclusion, the plan succeeded in increasing the inclusion rate from 24.6 per cent in 2017 to almost 50 per cent thanks to the full application of the strategy and other policies that the CBJ has implemented to make financial services available to all categories of society, the statement said.