Khaberni - The World Bank confirmed in its latest reports that the Jordanian economy continues to register moderate growth despite regional and financial challenges, where it is expected that the growth rate will reach 2.6% during the current year 2025, and will increase to 2.7% in the next year 2026, driven by the recovery of tourism and improvement in exports, along with the continuation of economic reforms aimed at boosting private investment and reducing financial pressures.
The Bank also affirmed that the Jordanian economy continued its positive path during the year 2025, despite regional tensions and global challenges, registering a growth rate of 2.7% in the first quarter, reflecting the ongoing pace of economic activity after a growth of 2.5% in 2024.
In the report, which was released on Tuesday and translated by "Al-Mamlaka," it is said that the public finances and the current account experienced pressures that led to a slight widening of the deficit, while inflation remained within stable levels at 1.9% during the first seven months of the year.
Jordan maintained its overall economic stability, but the renewed regional tensions and the slowdown in global trade are still putting pressure on investor confidence and increasing the costs of transportation and logistics.
There is a need to achieve higher growth rates and create job opportunities to tackle the high unemployment rate that reached 21.3% in the first quarter of 2025, with a decline in labor force participation to 32.9% (compared to 34.1% last year).
And women's participation remained "among the lowest in the region" at 14.5%, although most of them are highly educated.
In addition, climate shocks represent an increasing threat; as heatwaves and drought in early 2025 have reduced local grain production and increased reliance on imports, leading to fluctuations in food prices.
The water sector is also facing an exacerbated financial deficit due to rising energy costs and increasing unmet demand, while the energy sector faces similar pressures with elevated electricity demand during the summer.
Economic Sectors
Industry recorded the strongest quarterly growth ever driven by diversified exports, while agriculture was negatively affected by drought despite its high growth (7.4% in 2025 compared to 6.9% in 2024).
The services sector experienced limited growth of 2.2%, while tourism recovered strongly, with the number of visitors surpassing pre-crisis levels, which supported revenue in hard currency.
The World Bank expects that economic growth in Jordan will stabilize at an average of 2.7% in the medium term, while inflation is expected to reach 2.2% by the end of 2025 and stabilize at 2.4% thereafter.
It is expected that the fiscal deficit and the current account will gradually decrease with the support of expenditure control, enhanced revenues, and the rebound in tourism, while continuing to finance the deficit through bond issuance, concessional borrowing, and grants.
The report explained that Jordan benefited in the first half of 2025 from currency exchange movements and a slowdown in local inflation compared to its trading partners, which made Jordanian goods and services more competitive in foreign markets, thus boosting export potentials and supporting industrial activity.
The World Bank also confirmed that the Central Bank of Jordan maintained interest rates unchanged during the first seven months of 2025, after it had gradually reduced them by a total of 100 basis points in 2024 in line with the policy of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States. The actual interest rate on the overnight deposit window reached 6.25% in July 2025.
Despite the widening overall deficit, the report indicated that the primary balance (excluding grants) continued to record a surplus for the third consecutive year, although it started to decline. It noted that deficit financing is achieved through a mixture of bond issuance, concessional borrowing, and external grants, while public debt levels remained high at about 89.6% of GDP excluding debts of the Social Security Investment Fund.
