growth to an average of roughly 2% per year. Imports - mainly
oil, capital goods, consumer durables, and food - outstripped exports,
with the difference covered by aid, remittances, and borrowing. In
mid-1989, the Jordanian Government began debt-rescheduling
negotiations and agreed to implement an IMF-supported program designed
to gradually reduce the budget deficit and implement badly needed
structural reforms. The Persian Gulf crisis that began in August 1990,
however, aggravated Jordan's already serious economic problems,
forcing the government to shelve the IMF program, stop most debt
payments, and suspend rescheduling negotiations. Aid from Gulf Arab
states, worker remittances, and trade contracted; and refugees flooded
the country, producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting
GDP growth, and straining government resources. The economy rebounded
in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers
returning from the Gulf, but the recovery was uneven throughout 1994.
The government is implementing the reform program adopted in 1992 and
continues to secure rescheduling and write-offs of its heavy foreign
debt. Debt, poverty, and unemployment remain Jordan's biggest on-going
problems.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $17 billion (1994
est.)

National product real growth rate: 5.5% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $4,280 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 6% (1994 est.)

Unemployment rate: 16% (1994 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $2 billion
expenditures: $2.4 billion, including capital expenditures of $630
million (1995 est.)

Exports: $1.4 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
commodities: phosphates, fertilizers, potash, agricultural products,
manufactures
partners: India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, EU, Indonesia, UAE

Imports: $3.5 billion (c.i.f., 1994)
commodities: crude oil, machinery, transport equipment, food, live
animals, manufactured goods
partners: EU, US, Iraq, Japan, Turkey

External debt: $6 billion (March 1995 est.)

Industrial production: growth rate 3% (1993 est.); accounts for 20% of
GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 1,050,000 kW
production: 4.2 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 1,072 kWh (1993)

Industries: phosphate mining, petroleum refining, cement, potash,
light manufacturing

Agriculture: accounts for about 8% of GDP; wheat, barley, citrus
fruit, tomatoes, melons, olives; sheep, goats, poul