World Bank approves US$700 million in financing for Jordan reforms

The World Bank’s Executive Directors approved a US$700 million loan on 30 June 2026 to support private investment and employment in Jordan. The operation, called Jordan Growth and Competitiveness Development Policy Financing II, backs the government’s effort to convert economic stability into more investment and better jobs. It is a policy-financing approval, not a loan to particular companies, a project-by-project investment allocation or cash transferred to Jordan on the day of the announcement.

The Bank says the programme brings together reforms intended to make it easier to do business, broaden access to finance, create jobs and accelerate a green and digital transition. It reports that Jordan’s real GDP grew 2.8 percent in 2025 and that the country received its first sovereign credit-rating upgrade in more than two decades in 2024, which was maintained in 2025. In the Bank’s account, the next task is to turn that stability into private investment and broader economic opportunity.

The first reform area covers the business environment and the electricity sector. The programme supports streamlining sectoral licensing, modernizing the legal framework for electronic and cross-border transactions, and extending social protection to workers in flexible and part-time arrangements. It also backs changes intended to allow private investment in electricity transmission, generation and storage. These are policy areas the loan is designed to support; the announcement does not say every reform has been implemented or new energy capacity is already operating.

A second area is access to finance for entrepreneurs and firms. The programme supports efforts to modernize capital markets, introduce instruments such as crowdfunding and facilitate lending based on business cash flows. The World Bank says micro, small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 99 percent of firms in Jordan. Expanded financing could therefore affect a large share of businesses, although the release does not specify the amount of credit expected to reach them or the number of firms likely to benefit.

The package also includes reforms to help unbanked micro-entrepreneurs open business accounts and to operationalize Jordan’s National Green Taxonomy. Modernizing the legal basis for insurance products and moving outgoing government payments fully to digital channels are among the other measures listed. Digital payment systems can reduce transaction costs and delays, but those benefits should not be presented as realized until implementation quality, infrastructure and user access are assessed.

Two stages need to be distinguished when assessing the financing: approval of the loan by the World Bank’s Board and implementation of the supported policy steps by the government. Approval does not mean that funds are being distributed directly to small businesses. Relevant measures to follow include whether laws and regulations take effect, licensing times fall, private investment in electricity projects begins, and firms gain wider access to credit.

A fuller assessment should also track job quality, formal employment, women entrepreneurs’ access to finance and borrowing costs for firms of different sizes. The Bank’s announcement presents these as intended outcomes, not results already achieved. Public implementation reports and programme indicators could show which reforms the US$700 million framework supports, in what sequence, and where delays occur. Without those data, the loan approval is only the starting point of the process linking policy objectives to changes on the ground.

The operation matters to Jordan’s modernization agenda because it connects several areas of regulation and finance in one policy programme. If simpler licensing, worker protections, digital transactions and new financing tools advance together, conditions for starting and expanding a business could change. Whether that happens will be shown by implementation and outcome data published later, not by the targets in the announcement. The confirmed development is the Board’s approval of a US$700 million loan and the policy areas the Bank lists for support.