The Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, Ahmed Al-Hanandeh, said that the government’s cash collections figures do not reflect the actual electronic transactions that take place in this regard.
He explained during a meeting organized by the Jordanian Businessmen Association today, Saturday, to discuss the impact of electronic services on the ease of doing business; About 81 percent, or 6.5 billion dinars out of 8 billion dinars of government collections, are paid through electronic payment channels, but the other 1.5 billion, or 19 percent, constitute about 27 million direct cash movements, meaning that most of the sums are collected Electronically, but most of the movements are done directly.
He pointed out that the ministry is responsible for enabling the economic transformation of public and private sector institutions to develop technology to serve their businesses and provide their services in a better and faster way.
In response to a question by Jordan News Agency (Petra), he pointed out that the complete digital transformation will not end, and will continue with the continuation of technological development, and will save the government capital and operational expenses without generating additional income.
And he indicated that the joint infrastructure of e-government has saved, during the last five years, between 60-65 million dinars in capital and operational expenses.
He said, “Jordan has taken twenty years of accumulated frustrations, to reach an e-government, since the focus was on automating services, by converting them at the level of every institution to electronic,” stressing the need not to delay in reaching a coherent and integrated digital government, even if there are multiple institutions. .
He added that the complex procedures constituted a major challenge in regard to digital transformation, and work must be done to simplify, facilitate and speed them up, with the least possible degree of human intervention, in a manner that enhances the principle of one government and decentralization of service.
He stressed that the Sanad application, after its development, contains a wide range of distinctive services for the single service platform, with the aim of activating the digital identity, digital signature, and digital documents.
Al-Hanandy praised the Jordanian electronic payment system, which characterizes the Kingdom at the level of the Arab region, under the management of the Central Bank of Jordan.
In turn, the association’s president, Hamdi Al-Tabbaa, affirmed the association’s keenness to enhance its economic role as one of the institutions representing the private sector, by communicating with decision-makers from officials in the public sector, and discussing the most important issues of interest to the Jordanian private sector, and bringing together the views aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of partnership between the sector. public and private.
Al-Tabbaa pointed out that the information technology sector is one of the promising and supportive sectors for various other economic sectors, pointing to the role of the basic sector in achieving renaissance and sustainable growth, especially in light of global trends towards digital transformation and the adoption of advanced artificial intelligence techniques, which have become the basis for any development process in economic structures.
“The economies of countries that achieve advanced degrees in the ease of doing business use electronic systems extensively,” he said, pointing to the need to provide and provide electronic services, as they are of interest to investors, and simplify investment and commercial procedures.
He added that strengthening cybersecurity contributes to providing a safe and attractive environment for investment and supportive of business, which calls for unremitting efforts to give investors a bright picture of the reality of data and information security in Jordan, to be a safe and supportive investment destination for business in various digital aspects, thus enhancing confidence in the environment. Jordanian investment.
They discussed a number of axes of interest to the Jordanian business community in the fields of information technology, the most important of which is the role of the Ministry of Digital Economy and leadership in raising the efficiency and quality of electronic services provision, and expanding the scope of their use to serve the goals of digital transformation, in addition to talking about the cybersecurity system and its role in protecting the security of Information, and a statement of the most prominent challenges facing Jordan in the process of digital transformation in accordance with the objectives of the National Digital Transformation Strategy (2021-2025), in addition to discussing the mechanisms necessary to direct the current draft Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2023-2027) towards making Jordan in the near future a regional center Artificial intelligence, especially in the industrial, medical and pharmaceutical fields.
–(Petra)