boom of the
late 1970s and early 1980s, when its annual real GNP growth averaged
more than 10%. In the remainder of the 1980s, however, reductions in
both Arab aid and worker remittances slowed real economic growth to an
average of roughly 2% per year. Imports-mainly oil, capital goods,
consumer durables, and food-outstripped exports, with the difference
covered by aid, remittances, and borrowing. In mid-1989, the Jordanian
Government began debt-rescheduling negotiations and agreed to
implement an IMF-supported program designed to gradually reduce the
budget deficit and implement badly needed structural reforms. The
Persian Gulf crisis that began in August 1990, however, aggravated
Jordan's already serious economic problems, forcing the government to
shelve the IMF program, stop most debt payments, and suspend
rescheduling negotiations. Aid from Gulf Arab states, worker
remittances, and trade contracted; and refugees flooded the country,
producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting GDP growth,
and straining government resources. The economy rebounded in 1992,
largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning
from the Gulf, but recovery was uneven in 1994-97. The government is
implementing the reform program adopted in 1992 and continues to
secure rescheduling and write-offs of its heavy foreign debt. Debt,
poverty, and unemployment remain Jordan's biggest on-going problems.

GDP: purchasing power parity-$20.7 billion (1997 est.)

GDP-real growth rate: 5.3% (1997 est.)

GDP-per capita: purchasing power parity-$4,800 (1997 est.)

GDP-composition by sector:
agriculture: 6%
industry: 30%
services: 64% (1995 est.)

Inflation rate-consumer price index: 3% (1997 est.)

Labor force:
total: 1.15 million plus 300,000 foreign workers (1997 est.)
by occupation: industry 11.4%, commerce, restaurants, and hotels
10.5%, construction 10.0%, transport and communications 8.7%,
agriculture 7.4%, other services 52.0% (1992)

Unemployment rate: 15% official rate; note-actual rate is 20%-25%
(1997 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $2.7 billion
expenditures: $2.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $630
million (1997 est.)

Industries: phosphate mining, petroleum refining, cement, potash,
light manufacturing

Industrial production growth rate: -3.4% (1996)

Electricity-capacity: 1.066 million kW (1995)

Electricity-production: 5.02 billion kWh (1995)

Electricity-consumption per capita: 1,25