Qatar to give Jordan $1.25 bln in grants

AMMAN - Agence France-Presse

A boy carries foam mattresses for his tent at a refugee camp in Jordan. REUTERS photo

Qatar has inked a deal with Jordan to give it a total of $1.25 billion as part of a Gulf Cooperation Council plan to back economic reforms, the state-run Petra news agency reported yesterday.

Under the agreement signed on Sept. 26, Qatar will provide Jordan with $250 million a year for the coming five years.

“The grant will help support Jordan’s infrastructure and investment climate,” Qatari Finance, Economy and Trade Minister Yussef Hussein Kamal told Petra.

“It will encourage the private sector, at the local, Arab and international levels, to launch projects in Jordan.” During a GCC summit last year, “Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar agreed to extend $5 billion over a five-year period to support development projects in Jordan,” Petra said.

At the time, the GCC said it had “decided to create a Gulf development fund which begins by providing support to development projects in the Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Morocco worth $2.5 billion for each.” Amman is trying hard to offset a $3 billion deficit in this year’s $9.6 billion budget.