Category: Affairs

The Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) regulated financial institutions, including 75 Jordanian companies, have registered around 13 percent rise in their total assets which increased to QR44 billion ($12 billion) in 2020, compared to QR39 billion ($10.7 billion) in 2019.

A report issued on Tuesday by the QFC said that the growth in assets shows that the centre has built a robust business environment that continues to attract foreign investments, despite macroeconomic uncertainty.

QFC reported robust 2020 financial and operational results, including an increase in new license issues of 63.7 percent as compared to 2019, underscoring confidence in the potential for future growth, the report showed, noting that the rapid growth of assets is especially reflected in the rise of the total loans and advances, which increased from QR18.2 billion in 2018 and from QR25.8 billion in 2019 to QR29.8 billion in 2020.

The data highlights the proportion of loan and advances over total assets is at 68 percent at the end of December 2020.

The QFC continues to attract organizations from a wide range of industries. Despite pandemic-induced headwinds QFC experienced growth of its financial services and non-financial services sectors. With QFC’s growth was bolstered by new types of licenses being issued, such as fintech start-ups and scale-ups, a new legal service policy supporting licensed law firms to work with foreign clients, and new regulations enabling financial institutions establish a representative office in Qatar.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The prices of oil derivatives in global markets have risen in the first week of June, according to data released on Monday by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

The ministry’s figures showed that the price of 90-octane gasoline went up by 2.2 percent, going from $631.6 per ton in May to $645.7, while the price of 95-octane gasoline rose from $650.3 per ton to $661.8, an increase of 1.8 percent.

Diesel prices also increased by 4.1 percent going from $543.1 per ton to $565.2, while the prices of kerosene rose by 3.5 percent, from $567.1 to $587.3 per ton.

The prices of liquefied gas for June went up by 9.6 per cent, going from $480 to $526.3 to per ton.

Benchmark Brent crude prices also increased in the first week of the current month, from $68.8 to $69.9 per barrel.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Finance ministers from the G7 group of rich nations will meet in London on Friday for two days of talks aimed at moving closer to a global deal to raise more tax from the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

The gathering, chaired by British finance minister Rishi Sunak, will be the first time all seven ministers will meet face-to-face since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s willingness to raise taxes on large businesses also creates more chance of an international consensus than under his predecessor Donald Trump.

“I’m hugely optimistic that we will deliver some concrete outcomes this weekend,” Sunak said in a statement released late on Thursday.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The first unit of an oil shale-fueled electricity plant has been synchronized with the national grid both manually and automatically following successful dry-runs, according to Attarat Power, the company operating the project.

The plant is located in the Attarat Um Ghudran area, 50 kilometers east of Al-Qatranah, some 80 kilometers south of Amman. In a statement released Wednesday, the company said 25 percent of the unit’s 75MW capacity was synchronized with the national grid, adding that trials will continue over the next few days until arriving the full capacity of the unit.

The Attarat power project is the largest foreign investment in the Kingdom at an estimated cost of $ 2.1 billion, providing more than a thousand long-term job opportunities for Jordanians. It is the first project to benefit from local oil shale resources, and reduce Jordan’s dependence on imported gas. The project is expected to be commercially operational by the last third of this year.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Prices of oil derivatives in international markets slightly dropped during the third week of May, according to data released on Monday by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

According to the data, the price of 90-octane gasoline declined by 0.8 percent, going from $628.6 to $623.8 per ton, while the price of 95-octane gasoline went down from $645.8 in the second week to $641.9 per ton in the third week, a decrease of 0.6 percent.

Diesel prices also fell by 0.5 percent going from $543.3 per ton to $540.7, while the prices of kerosene dropped by 0.7 percent, from $567.9 to $563.7.

The prices of liquefied gas for May dropped by 10.7 per cent, going from $537.5 to $480 per ton.

Benchmark Brent crude prices declined in the third week of the current month, from $69 to $67.9 per barrel.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The inspection teams of the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) on Sunday warned 48 facilities for not complying with health and safety measures.

According to a statement issued by the GAM on Monday, the teams conducted some 656 visits to various establishments, during which 14 businesses were closed, while 13 others were fined for flouting health and professional conditions.

Source: Jordan News Agency

Leaders International for Economic Development officially launched its Crowd-solving for Innovation and Economic Growth in Jordan project (Idea Bank) with funding from the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative MEPI.

In a statement on Sunday, Leader International said that the project offers Jordanian governmental institutions a platform to outline their needs and challenges for Jordanian entrepreneurs who will in turn find innovative, technological solutions.

Throughout its first phase, the project signed 3 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the following entities: Jordan Investment Commission (JIC); Ministry of Agriculture; and Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, followed by dialogue sessions with each in order to define the ‘Idea Bank’ concept, present the anticipated project implementation plan, and illustrate the design for the corresponding digital platform.

The sessions also involved an exchange of information and ideas regarding the challenges faced by Jordanian governmental institutions, which can potentially be tackled by the innovation, entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jordan.

Hamzeh Shamaileh, Country Manager at Leaders International, stated: “Leaders International strives to enhance cooperation and collaboration with governmental bodies in Jordan. Through our Idea Bank project, we provide such institutions with the opportunity to communicate needs and challenges that can be solved by the Jordanian innovative, entrepreneurial community. We also facilitate dialogue between the two sides in an effort to create new economic opportunities and accelerate digital transformation.”

Shamaileh also stressed the importance of ‘Idea Bank’ as one of the first projects in Jordan to encourage partnership and collaboration between the government and the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The project, the statement added, will also organize a 3-day national hackathon, bringing together 100 entrepreneurs and a number of representatives from participating governmental institutions so that the former can come up with innovative solutions for the latter. At the end, participants will present their innovative solutions to a panel of representatives from participating governmental institutions and incubators, who will select winning teams and provide primary financing to entrepreneurs so they could develop and implement their ideas.

The winning teams will also receive 4 – 6-month incubation services with one of the participating Jordanian incubators, it said.

With regards to sustainability, the project will launch the digital ‘Idea Bank’ platform, which will showcase the winning teams and highlight the significance of crowd-solving. Each of the participating governmental organizations will have a representative acting as a focal point with entrepreneurs and incubators to express and outline pressing problems and challenges that need to be addressed.

The platform itself is also a tool to ensure project sustainability whereby governmental organisations can carry on using it to articulate their challenges even after the project ends, and thereby increase participation and new economic opportunities for Jordan’s youth.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The Jordan Investment Commission (JIC) on Sunday started a series of meetings with the Jordanian embassies and diplomatic missions abroad, to develop a mechanism for cooperation and draw structures of marketing to attract value-adding foreign investments to the Kingdom.

During the meetings, the JIC will also inform the political bodies on the needed knowledge and data on the Kingdom’s investment opportunities and target investors.

In a statement, JIC’s acting president Faridon Hartouqa said the meetings are being held in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, stressing the Jordanian embassies’ role in marketing the Kingdom’s economic and investment opportunities, and informing the international business community about the preferential features of the Jordanian investment environment.

He also highlighted the government’s commitment to achieving a significant growth in the volume of inbound investments, according to well-thought-out foundations, sound economic environment and good investment climate that attracts foreign direct investment.

Source: Jordan News Agency

U.S. Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, and other representatives on Wednesday evening introduced a resolution opposing the sale of weapons to the Israeli government.

“At a time when so many, including President Biden, support a ceasefire, we should not be sending ‘direct attack’ weaponry to Prime Minister Netanyahu to prolong this violence,” the resolution text said, according to the Washington Post.

The newspaper also quoted U.S. representative Rashida Tlaib saying “the harsh truth is that these weapons are being sold by the United States to Israel with the clear understanding that the vast majority of them will be used to bomb Gaza.”

President Joe Biden’s administration approved the potential sale of $735 million in weapons to Israel earlier this year, and sent it to Congress for formal review on May 5, giving lawmakers 15 days to object under laws governing foreign weapons sales.

Source: Jordan News Agency

The Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) on Thursday inked an agreement with the Aqaba Diving Association to conduct a clean up for the coastal city’s underwater and diving centers to protect the marine environment.

ASEZA’s Chief Commissioner, Nayef Bakheet, said the agreement aims at developing a plan of action for each diving center in the Gulf of Aqaba, in order to attain a pollution-free marine ecosystem.

“Under the agreement, diving sites will also be protected for being a prominent attraction for local and foreign tourists,” he added.

The Aqaba Diving Association oversees 29 diving centers, with a group of qualified experts in the field of seabed care, coral monitoring, diving, waste sorting mechanism and raising awareness of the marine environment.

Source: Jordan News Agency