PM meets with Senate Finance Committee members

AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Sunday stressed the importance of reconsidering subsidies of electricity, as it is one of the obstacles that hinder investments and productive sectors.       

The premier’s remarks came during a meeting with Senate Finance Committee, headed by Senate President Faisal Fayez, in which the PM stressed that supporting electricity will be part of the social security network in the budget of 2019, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the meeting, Fayez said that the economic reforms carried out by the government should take into consideration widening the middle class and not affecting the low-income people, in line with His Majesty King Abdullah’s directives.

Fayez said that the Upper House “understands” the difficult economic challenges the Kingdom is facing as a result of regional turmoil.

He called for finding the “best” means to address tax evasion, enhance the social security network, distribute the national development gains to all governorates, establishing job-generating investment projects and finding new markets for the Jordanian exports.

He also called for benefitting from the post-Daesh era, especially preparing to take part in the reconstruction of Syria and Iraq.

Fayez stressed the importance of removing all obstacles that would face investors, combating administrative and bureaucratic inertia.

For his part, Mulki said that the public budget law and the law of government units came in line with the structure and financial reform programme and the plan to stimulate economic growth.

The PM stressed that the government has allocated JD171 from the budget for the social security network to protect the middle- and low-income families from the price hike of some commodities.

The government has also allocated JD10 million to support the military and civil consumer corporations to help them stabilise prices, JD10 million to include more families in the National Aid Fund and JD5 million for food rations at schools in underprivileged regions, which raises the social security network’s allocations to JD195 million.