AMMAN — The Open Market Operations Committee of the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) on Thursday decided to keep interest rates on monetary policy instruments unchanged.

The bank affirmed its "full" commitment to closely following up on developments related to the national economy's performance, especially monetary and banking indicators, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The CBJ said that this move coincides with close follow-up of global economic developments, financial and commodity market performance, and regional and global central bank monetary policy plans to counter inflation-related pressures, as well as amidst of geopolitical uncertainties in the region.

The committee, during its first meeting of the year, stressed its confidence in the national economy continuing positive, adding that the CBJ’s foreign reserves have reached $18.2 billion, which is sufficient to cover the Kingdom’s imports of goods and services for 7.9 months.

The committee also referred to the increase in bank deposits (year-on-year) by JD1.6 billion in 2023, with a growth of 3.9 per cent to JD43.7 billion.

The credit facilities granted by banks (year-on-year) also increased by JD1 billion, with a growth rate of 3.5 per cent.

The CBJ also said that the tourism income recorded a surge of 27.4 per cent in the first three quarters of 2023, which exceeded expectations, to reach “unprecedented historic” level of JD5.2 billion.

Additionally, Jordanian expatriates’ remittances also increased by 1.4 per cent to JD2.5 billion in 2023.

This positive trend was supported by balanced economic policies, mainly monetary measures, which curbed inflationary pressures. In 2023, the inflation rate totaled 2.1 per cent, half of the level recorded in 2022.

The CBJ estimates showed that the national economy is capable of achieving a growth rate of 2.6 per cent in 2023, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year.

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