The Negative Outlook reflects the risk that government debt deteriorates further amid an uncertain recovery and a difficult social context following the coronavirus pandemic.
“We estimate that Jordan's general government (GG) deficit widened to 5.4 percent of GDP in 2020, from 1.4 percent in 2019, driven by a 40 percent collapse in non-tax revenue,” the report read.
“We expect the GG deficit to narrow to 4.1 percent of GDP in 2021 and 2.7 percent in 2022,” it added.
Fitch further expected GG debt to peak in 2021, with the subsequent decline aided by a return to growth and primary surpluses.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance revealed that domestic debt reached 12.13 billion dinars and the foreign debt totaled 13.6 billion dinars at the end of March.
The GG debt totals 85.6 percent of the GDP of the country.
Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry has changed the method of calculating the GG debt, with the exception of debts from the Social Security Investment Fund, which amount to around 7 billion dinars.
