Jordan king Abdullah II outlines economic roadmap for years to come
Jordan’s King Abdullah II’s sixtieth anniversary speech in 2022, coinciding with the bicentenary of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, was marked by a high degree of political and social intensity that took the occasion out of its purely ceremonial reach from the public arena, the press, and communication, and the sharing of challenges that Jordan faces with its citizens, a tradition that King Abdullah II has always advocated through love and passion. His wisdom has helped to spare the country many storms in an Arab region where the monarchies have become the most stable regimes.
The message from Jordan’s King Abdullah II stressed the need to continue the legacy of the Hashemite fathers and grandfathers, and to work to strengthen the building that they accomplished in order to complete the development of the Kingdom along the path of a long-term strategic vision, through a comprehensive national project that crosses governments, and a road map that outlines the features of the next stage of the state at the beginning of its second millennium, in a way that ensures that Jordan will have its position among the developed countries.
In his message, which depicted the social and governmental reality, King Abdullah II said that there is a gap between the reality in Jordan today and what it should be. He also highlighted the features of the coming period, which he wanted to see as an occasion for change, with the belief that there are challenges facing the country, before any time, at all political, security and economic levels, imposed by the security situation in an unstable regional environment.
The Jordanian monarch’s plan to move forward with the process of modernization, growth and development requires serious and urgent follow-up by the current and future Jordanian governments, beginning with changing the administrative approach, addressing the state’s stagnant state and lack of qualified personnel, and confronting the challenges posed by bureaucratic complexity and traditional forces that stand in the way of development and modernization.
As stated in the royal message, the Jordanian monarch’s wisdom in pushing Jordan towards development stems from a strong will to support and stimulate development projects. It focuses on selecting senior leaders on appropriate scientific and methodological foundations, through reforming the public sector and assigning it to strong competencies, as clearly stated in the royal message.
He stressed the need to achieve a comprehensive economic renaissance, based first on the definition of a set of measurable goals in this regard, and then placing them within executive axes that the governments will undertake, in order to serve the demands of the people. He also stressed the need to focus on the future prospects of ensuring the continued fulfillment of these demands and raising their level in quantity and quality. This requires serious treatment of the issues of unemployment and poverty, in addition to supporting the government’s drive to create new jobs in non-traditional sectors such as tourism in general, therapeutic tourism in particular, renewable and alternative energy, the need to focus on supporting technological industries, and stimulating commercial traffic with neighboring countries and in the region.
In his letter, the Jordanian king also spoke of the importance of legislative development as an indispensable solution to the problems caused by legislation that impedes economic growth, in addition to the negative role played by the Investment Promotion Foundation, whose work has been questioned by many. The nature of its current situation makes it, contrary to what its name indicates, an obstacle to investment.
For this reason, King Abdullah II has drawn up a plan for developing the country’s economy and pushing it towards growth and prosperity through the availability of a broad and comprehensive package of modern and flexible laws and legislation. There is great potential for updating and developing these laws and their executive instructions in a way that always guarantees economic growth and considers it the main objective for which all means and tools are utilized and for removing all the obstacles that the current reality suffers for all ministries and government departments to work, each according to his specialty, within a single investment-supporting and encouraging strategy.
Investment support has become a common vision to which all institutions, not just one institution, are committed. This is done through the enactment of laws and decisions to facilitate and attract investments that can be developed and improved immediately to ensure a rapid response to investors’ needs.
In order to combat unemployment, King Abdullah II, in his letter, drew up a comprehensive plan for integrating the work of the public and private sectors, aimed at facing the difficulties that face both sectors. The public sector is unable to secure new job opportunities, while the private sector is still suffering from the negative effects caused by the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic inside and outside the Kingdom, in addition to what it was suffering in the past due to the overload of administrative work sponsoring the private sector, and the stagnation of laws and organizational instructions that have weakened it for many years, which led to the complexity of the unemployment problem and delayed effective solutions to it. In this regard, King Abdullah II called for the initiation of a series of participatory dialogs between the two sectors in the Kingdom, by his personal guarantee, to put in place the outcomes of these dialogs to develop projects and attract foreign investments and to move towards comprehensive economic development.
In order to implement all the strategies outlined by King Abdullah II in his speech, the message also stressed the importance of building mutual trust between citizens on the one hand, and between the government and various sectors of the state and civil society institutions on the other hand, which allows citizens to feel that they are a real and active partner with their government in taking decisions and participating in public affairs.
In this regard, the experience of the Royal Commission for the Modernization of the Political System, which was formed by King Abdullah, is an important proposal and a bold and inspiring step in this context, and a promising model that can be generalized to other sectors.
