Under Jordan’s King Abdullah II leadership… Unprecedented developments in the communications and information technology sector

Since the ascension of His Majesty King Abdullah II to the rule of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Sovereign has been keen to develop the communications and information technology sector in order to achieve his goal of making Jordan a developed country in this vital sector, which is the language of the times among developed countries.

Significant progress has been achieved within the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan thanks to the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah II regarding the opening of markets, the enactment of relevant legislation and laws, the creation of an organizational environment and the implementation of development and strategic programs and projects that will raise the level of penetration and harness the technology that will realize the vision of His Majesty in reaching the knowledge economy.

The IT sector has been contributing to the economy and building the process of digital transformation in Jordan and the region since 2000. The number of Jordanian companies working in the communications and information technology sectors has increased from a limited number of companies two decades ago to more than 600 companies at present.

The telecom and information technology sectors recorded revenues of $2.2 billion in 2018, of which $1.4 billion was revenues for the telecom sector.

The information technology sector has made significant progress in its revenue (total domestic revenue and exports), which in 2018 amounted to about $749 million, significantly higher than the sector’s income recorded in 2003, which was $296 million. In 2018, exports from the technology sector recorded $262 million, compared with $70 million in 2003. The IT sector exports services to more than 40 countries around the world, including the United States, Germany and the Arab Gulf markets.

The Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, under the directives of HM the King, is developing and launching 132 e-government services this year as part of its program and plan for digital transformation.

More than 500 e-government services have been launched.

The sector has witnessed development in terms of infrastructure and communications technologies. Third-generation mobile phone services were launched in 2008 and fourth-generation mobile phone services were launched in 2015. The government is working to launch fifth-generation mobile phone services in the country and to try to complete them as soon as possible.

The total investment in the communications sector reached 145 million dinars for 2020, 83 million of which was in the cellular sector.

The communications and information technology sectors include more than 17,000 employees, 14,000 of whom are in the technology sector, and contribute to the direct and indirect employment of more than 100,000 employees in all sectors, making it the fastest-growing domestic sector and the most labor-intensive.

The use of telecommunications, especially cellular service, is widespread in Jordan, reaching the homes of 98% of Jordanians.

According to the statistics issued by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, the number of mobile phone service subscriptions registered at the end of the third quarter of 2012 was about 7.3 million cellular subscriptions in the local telecommunications market, which is prepared by neutral studies among the most competitive in the region.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2021, 291,000 people had subscribed to fixed-line phone services. The number of Internet users in Jordan reached 11 million, and estimates indicate that the penetration of smartphones exceeds 97% of the total number of mobile phone users in Jordan.

Thanks to the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah, the Government has completed four important policies in the area of digital transformation and information technology in 2020, namely the Government’s data classification and management policy, the Jordanian Artificial Intelligence policy, the cloud platform policy and services, the open application programming interfaces policy, while work is currently under way to pass a law for the protection of personal data and the National Information Law, as well as a strategy for digital transformation and another for entrepreneurship.

Under King Abdullah II, the Kingdom of Jordan continues to follow the lead of developed countries in the world in this field.