Globalization: Trade And Investment In Egypt, Jordan And Syria Since 1980 - Statistical Data Included

There have also been significant improvements in the investment laws of Jordan since 1991. Law 16 of 1995, the "Investment Promotion Law", has brought in some foreign investment. Unfortunately, such investments have usually been under $100 million in the major industries in Jordan. There have been some very large investments by the Japanese and Indians recently, however.(70)

As in Egypt, as government investment went down as a percentage of the GDP, the private sector and the stock market seems to have taken up the slack, even during some of the most difficult times, like during and after the Gulf war of 1991. Private investment is now 77% of all investment in Jordan. This is one of the highest in the Middle East. But FDI is only .2% of GDP.(71)

A rather odd result is that the stock market capitalization of Jordan had its greatest growth period during 1990 to 1993. This is when Jordan was having some of its toughest economic crises in decades. It was also before the peace treaty with Israel. Since the peace treaty was signed the capitalization of the stock market of Jordan has been relatively stagnant. The turnover of stocks also boomed in 1990 to 1993, from $400 million to $1.4 billion. Turnover has dropped off to under $200 million since then.

The pre-peace boom may have had a lot to do with changes in investment and tax laws. It may also have had something to do with the restrictive measures the IMF imposed on Jordan while it developed its ERSAP program. It may also have had something to do with the privatizations that were occurring at that time. But it also had a lot to do with the 400,000+ Jordanians who were mostly forced to rerum and start a new life, and new businesses in Jordan after 1990.

Another important fact about the Amman Financial Market (AFM) as reported by the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, D.C.(72) is that about 33% of the AFM's market value is owned by non-Jordanians. The Government of Jordan owns 26%. The Jordanian Embassy also reports that the private sector is 100% of construction, 94% of manufacturing, 95% of services like banking, business, and other finance.

The Investment Promotion Corporation of Jordan(73), established as part of Law 16, "Investment Promotion Law", of 1995, gives the following data for investments in different sectors of Jordan for 1997. For industrial projects 159.6 million JD was from domestic sources. 64.3 Million JD was from foreign sources. For Hotels 74 million JD were from domestic sources. 54 million JD were from foreign sources. For agricultural investments 12.2 million JD were from domestic sources. 4.9 million JD were from foreign sources. The exchange permits for that time period may also show who is doing what amount of investing. Persons or companies from the "Arab Common Market" countries were given 11.4 million JD in exchange permits. Other Arab persons or companies were given 5.3 million JD. EEC persons or companies were given 12.1 million JD. Persons or companies from the U.S. were, surprisingly, the highest at 32.9 million JD. Others had only 4.2 million JD total.