Khaberni - The Jordan Economic Forum has released a new analytical paper titled "Economic Update Vision: Tracking the Impact of the Executive Program for the First Phase (2023–2025)," discussing in-depth what has been achieved during the first three years of implementing the vision.
The Forum stated in a report that the second phase of the executive program for the period (2026–2029) will be a critical juncture for reviewing achievements and assessing its real impact on the national economy and living standards, noting that the first phase saw a notable improvement in several indicators such as economic growth, increased foreign direct investment inflows, and the creation of new job opportunities.
It clearly indicated that the reflection of these improvements on actual income and quality of life remained limited, likely due to the nature of the sectors achieving growth or attracting investments, which are often high-value or capital-intensive and do not directly contribute to employment and wage increases, in addition to the varying efficiency of capital spending across sectors.
In this context, the Forum emphasized that the upcoming phase should focus on enhancing execution efficiency and increasing productivity, and on aligning economic and financial goals with realistic financing capabilities to ensure the sustainability of projects.
It also noted that the vision document confirmed that the next phase will be a period of expansion and deepening, building on the results of the first phase with the aim of broadening the scope of implementation to include additional sectors and achieve a broader social and economic impact.
The Forum considered that the vision still represents a long-term national framework for stimulating growth and improving the quality of life, and that what has been achieved so far constitutes an important step that also reveals the scale of work required to sustain reform and expand its social impact.
On the other hand, the Forum explained that this paper comes as a continuation of the first analytical paper issued in March 2025 titled "Economic Update Vision: Between Ambitious Goals and the Reality of Execution," which represented a starting point for monitoring the implementation of the vision during the first phase (2023–2025).
The new paper confirms that the preparation of the second executive program is still under development, and final data on the results of the first phase have not yet been issued, hence the paper relied on the latest official data available at the time of its preparation to provide a precise analytical reading of the implementation path and transition trends to the second phase, focusing on the role of foreign direct investment in supporting economic growth.
In the same context, the Forum presented the overall performance of the vision as the reference framework for economic policies during the period 2022–2033, being initiated from the principle of achieving a qualitative and structural transformation based on two main pillars: unleashing productive capacities for growth and improving citizen's quality of life.
It mentioned that translating the vision into executive programs involves eight main objectives supported by clear quantitative performance indicators, aiming to ensure coherent and effective implementation over ten years, but noted the absence of complete up-to-date data related to the vision's indicators, except for indicators of newly created job opportunities and individual actual income.
The Forum focused on these two files as they are the most expressive of the vision's impact on citizens' lives.
The Forum pointed to the official government data, which showed that the government achieved an achievement rate of 36.4% out of 641 priorities within the executive program from the beginning of 2023 to the end of the third quarter of 2025, equivalent to 197 priorities implemented, against 301 priorities under implementation at a rate of 55.6%, and 38 priorities behind schedule.
It explained that the achievements were distributed according to the vision's drivers as follows: 60 priorities in high-value industries, 45 priorities in future services, 34 priorities in entrepreneurship and innovation, and 24 priorities in sustainable resources, while life quality drivers, "Jordan as a global destination", and the investment and sustainable environment drivers showed varying levels of progress, reflecting the readiness and nature of each sector.
In tracking the employment file, which is one of the vision's most important goals and the Forum's, the data showed that the number of newly created job opportunities in 2024 reached 96,421, representing 96.4% of the annual target set, compared to 95,342 opportunities in 2023 according to the General Statistics Department's data.
However, despite this slight numeric improvement, its impact on the labor market was limited, as the unemployment rate stood at 21.3% in the second quarter of 2025, leading the Forum to emphasize that the quality and sustainability of job opportunities are more important than the total number announced.
Overall, the data shows that the annual newly created job opportunities during the first phase ranged between 95–100 thousand opportunities per year, efforts that are appreciated, but they did not achieve the desired effect in reducing unemployment as a result of focusing on sectors with low productivity and wages, or in temporary, seasonal, or short-term jobs.
In the same context, the paper discussed the development of real individual income, as a key indicator for measuring the impact of economic growth on living standards, where data shows that the average real income per individual increased from 2,830 dinars in 2023 to 2,846 dinars in 2024, representing a growth rate of only 0.6%, much lower than the median target set in the vision of 3% annual growth.
The data shows the income trend during the period 2015–2024, which reveals that the income growth rate remained below 1% annually since 2022, reflecting an existing gap between overall economic growth and tangible improvement in citizens' living standards, and indicating the necessity to review mechanisms for income improvement, productivity enhancement, and linking wages to actual added value.
In a related context, the Forum noted that while the first phase's executive program included targets for individual shares of the gross domestic product at current prices for the years (2023–2025), it did not contain clear targets for real income, stressing the need to include them in the second phase.
Official data shows that the individual share of the gross domestic product at current prices reached 3,228 dinars in 2024, compared to a target of about 3,779 dinars, achieving about 85% of the target, while the individual share grew by 2.5% compared to 2023, but as the Forum points out, this growth did not reflect on real individual income, confirming the ongoing gap between overall economic performance and its direct impact on citizens' lives.
From another standpoint, the Forum focused in this paper on foreign direct investment as a pivotal element in supporting growth, despite not being listed as a main goal in the vision document, given its role in transferring technology and knowledge, enhancing competitiveness, and creating high-quality employment opportunities, where the data indicates that the actual net investment in the first half of 2025 amounted to 721 million dinars, against an annual target of 1,092 million dinars, equivalent to about two-thirds during half a year.
Moreover, the foreign direct investment in 2024 amounted to approximately 1,122.2 million dinars, surpassing the target of 900 million dinars, reflecting a notable improvement in the business environment and greater confidence in the Jordanian economy.
In conclusion, the Jordan Economic Forum concluded that the Economic Update Vision represents the most comprehensive framework for addressing economic challenges and enhancing sustainable development paths, emphasizing that the next phase requires further development of implementation tools and monitoring, clarifying the actual impact of projects on employment and income, ensuring that the vision becomes a permanent path to improving citizens' lives, rather than just a limited-time plan.
