The Middle East, including Jordan, has faced turbulent geopolitical conditions throughout 2025, largely due to the ongoing war in Gaza and the cascading reactions in neighboring countries.

 

These developments have negatively impacted the tourism sector and created potential challenges for the investment climate, tempering earlier optimistic expectations for economic growth.

 

In response to these headwinds, the government has pressed forward with the implementation of the Economic Modernisation Vision and the Public Sector Modernsation Roadmap. Both initiatives, launched during the previous government and backed by His Majesty King Abdullah, span a ten-year horizon, with the primary goal of generating employment opportunities.

 

This priority remains urgent as unemployment stood at 21.4% at the end of 2024, declining only slightly to 21.3% by the end of the first quarter of 2025.

 

Since the beginning of the year, the government has introduced a series of measures and decisions aimed at stimulating economic growth. As a result, GDP growth rose to 2.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 2.2 per cent during the same period last year.

 

Meanwhile, the Change in Consumer Price Index (2018 = 100) reached 1.86 per cent by the end of August 2025. External trade indicators also showed improvement, with the total exports-to-imports coverage ratio increasing by one percentage point to 51 per cent, according to the Jordan news agency, Petra.

 

In the financial sector, Gross Foreign Reserves (including gold and SDRs), reached an unprecedented $22.758 billion U.S. dollars, the highest level in the Kingdom’s history.

 

According to recent bulletins issued by the Central Bank of Jordan, these reserves are sufficient to cover 8.7 months of imports of goods and services, marking the longest coverage period in the last five years.