Tourism sector stakeholders sign MoU to outline investment opportunities

AMMAN — The Ministry of Tourism, the Jordan Investment Commission (JIC), the Social Security Investment Fund (SSIF), the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) and the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to determine tourist investment priorities.

The MoU also aims at adopting an investment map for governorates, which will identify investment opportunities according to clear standards that outline the roles and duties of all stakeholders, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Under the MoU, the ministry will prepare a central database for tourist investments in the Kingdom, while the JIC is tasked with forming a committee later in the process to activate the MoU and running feasibility studies of existing projects.

For its part, the JTB will provide the ministry with studies on tourists’ preferred attractions in the Kingdom .

The JIC, the JTB and the RSCN will offer consultations in stimulating tourist investments, collect information from governorates on potential local investors and provide the ministry with the information, in addition to developing several guidance models for tourist feasibility and setting standards to encourage start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism sector. 

The SSIF, for its part, will consider proposed projects and select ones to finance based on the feasibility studies, in accordance with the fund’s policies.

The Kingdom’s tourism revenues went up by 9 per cent by the end of September to $4.4 billion, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) said in October.

The CBJ said that tourism revenues grew due to the leap in the number of tourists to 4.107 million visitors, which marked a 7-per cent increase from the same period in 2018.