Arabian Business reported that Saudi Arabia has pledged USD 487 million assistance package to help support new development projects in Jordan.
Mr Abdullah Ensour PM of Jordhan said that the first USD 125 million will be transferred soon while the remainder will be included in the 2013 budget. An additional USD 250 million deposit will be transferred into a special account for the Saudi development fund as part of a GCC wide pledge to pump USD 5 billion into the Hashemite Kingdom
At a GCC summit in December 2011 Saudi Arabia the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar agreed to extend USD 5 billion over 5 year period to support development projects in Jordan with each state contributing USD 1.25 billion.
Mr Suleiman Hafez minister of finance said that the kingdom's public debt to GDP ratio increased to about 64% by end 2011. Its fiscal deficit could rise to JOD 2.93 billion this year if economic conditions in the country do not improve. The kingdom's debt would rise to JOD 17.5 billion by the end of the year from JOD 14.3billion
The overall budget deficit has increased to about 6% of GDP in 2011 as a result of commodity subsidies other social spending and borrowing by the government on behalf of Jordan's National Electric Power Company to cover more costly imported fuel oil used during extensive periods of interrupted natural gas supply when saboteurs attacked pipelines in Egypt over the past year and a half.
The government accumulated over JOD 2.8 billion in debt because it had to produce electricity from fuel rather than gas as a result of the disruption of supply from Egypt.
