AMMAN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East region have suppressed economic activity in Jordan, resulting in a fall in its tourist numbers at an annual rate of 6.6 percent from October 2023 to August this year, said the World Bank in a recent report.

"This downturn was largely due to a year-on-year fall of 19.7 percent in single-day tourists and of 4 percent in overnight visitors," the World Bank said Wednesday in its latest edition of the MENA Economic Update.

"Between October 2023 and August 2024, the decline in tourists since October 2023 was predominantly caused by a decline in European visitors, offset by some increase in arrivals from the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and other Arab regions," it said.

The World Bank predicted in early October that Jordan's economic growth would slow slightly to 2.4 percent in 2024, primarily due to the impacts of the conflicts on tourism, trade, transportation, and construction. The country's economic growth rate for 2025 is expected at 2.6 percent.

On Sunday, Jordan's state-run Petra news agency, citing data from the Central Bank of Jordan, reported that the country's tourism revenue by the end of the third quarter this year stood at 5.57 billion U.S. dollars, down 4.3 percent from last year's figure due to a 7-percent decline in tourists.

Meanwhile, total remittances reached 2.34 billion dollars by the end of August, compared with 2.26 billion dollars during the same period in 2023, Petra reported, adding that remittances from Jordanian expatriates in the first eight months of this year increased by 3.5 percent.

"Jordan continues to show resilience and maintain macro-economic stability, despite the headwinds caused by the intensifying conflict in the region ... Nonetheless, as the conflict continues and widens, it is having a larger impact on Jordan's economy than anticipated," the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Oct. 10 in a statement.

Despite a decline in tourist arrivals shown by the World Bank, Ilham Saeed, an economic news editor and analyst, still expressed optimism about Jordan's economy in the near future.

"Even amidst regional conflict, there are some good signs, and also, international institutions such as the IMF have recently commended Jordan's resilience," Saeed told Xinhua on Thursday. Enditem

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