On Wednesday, the Parliamentary Finance Committee will begin discussing the two draft laws on the general budget and the budget of government units for the fiscal year 2022.

The meeting will be attended at 2 pm by the Ministry of Finance and its affiliated departments, the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation / the National Planning Council, the Department of General Statistics, and the Governor of the Central Bank.

The House of Representatives referred the two draft laws on the general budget and the budget of government units for the fiscal year 2022, to its Finance Committee during its session on Monday, December 20, 2021.

The government sent the two bills to the House of Representatives on the 28th of last month, as Article 112 of the constitution provides for referring the general budget to the National Assembly at least one month before the start of the fiscal year for consideration.

The deficit in the draft budget for next year (the difference between expected revenues and expenditures) was estimated at 1.756 billion dinars, according to the draft budget law for 2022.

The percentage of the estimated deficit in the draft budget for next year, out of the gross domestic product, according to what Finance Minister Muhammad al-Isas announced, amounted to 5.2% after grants, which reached 7.7% before grants.

Finance Minister Mohamed Al-Ississ, indicated in a previous press conference that the initial deficit had been reduced by 2.1% from 2020, and by 0.8% from what was expected in the 2021 budget.

With regard to the expected revenues in the 2022 budget, they amounted to approximately 8.912 billion dinars, and tax revenues accounted for the largest share of the total with an estimated value of 6.089 billion dinars, and non-tax revenues came in second place with a value of 1.975 billion dinars.

The estimated external grants for the 2022 budget amounted to 848 million dinars, and were distributed among 55 million dinars from the Gulf grant, 599 million dinars from the United States of America, and 60 million dinars from the European Union, as for other countries (including Canada, the global concessional financing mechanism and the Mecca Summit). With a value of 134 million dinars.

The total estimated expenditures for the next year amounted to 10.668 billion dinars, while the total estimated current expenditures amounted to 9.117 billion dinars, and capital expenditures 1.551 billion dinars.

Next year’s budget project estimated a value of 615 million dinars for projects that took the status of “continuous” within capital expenditures, while projects “under implementation” amounted to 595.7 million dinars, while new projects were worth 341.2 million dinars.

The Parliamentary Legal Committee will also discuss the draft amendment of the Jordanian constitution for the year 2021, in the presence of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Center for Human Rights and a number of members of the Council.

(The kingdom)