WASHINGTON – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed Wednesday to lend $2 billion to Jordan, whose economy has been hit by high oil prices and Arab Spring political unrest in neighboring countries. “The IMF staff agreed to support Jordan's agenda for a socially acceptable fiscal consolidation,” the IMF said in a statement. “It will provide liquidity during the next three years, which will allow the authorities to gradually implement their agenda.” Jordan's foreign reserves stood at about $8.7 billion in June, central bank Governor Ziad Fariz told Reuters last month, down from $10.9 billion at the end of last year. He said the reserves covered about five months of Jordan's imports. The IMF predicted Jordan's current account deficit, its shortfall in trade of goods and services, would widen to 14 percent of gross domestic product in 2012. It previously estimated last year's deficit at 9.5 percent. The Fund noted that its loan to Jordan, at about 800 percent of the country's quota in the IMF, was unusually large relative to the economy's size. Normally, a country can borrow up to 200 percent of its quota annually and 600 percent cumulatively. – Reuters
