The U.S. government has pledged 100 million dollars in additional economic aid to Jordan for the fiscal year 2005 under the terms of a letter of intent signed in Amman Sunday, dpa reported. The agreement is set to raise U.S. economic aid to Jordan to 350 million dollars for the current year, officials said. The accord was signed on behalf of the Jordanian government by Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Suhair Al-Ali, while the visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick signed for the U.S. administration. Al-Ali also discussed with Zoellick the "challenges facing Jordan as a result of poverty, high employment rate and soaring oil prices," that threaten to push the public budget deficit to unprecedented dimensions, a statement said. The signing of the letter of intent comes only a day after Jordan hiked fuel prices by between 10 per cent and 33 per cent and adopted an austerity package designed to meet the repercussions of surging oil prices and the rupture by three oil-rich Gulf countries of crude donations amounting to 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Earlier in the day, Zoellick, who is on a regional tour, conferred with Jordan's King Abdullah on ways for pushing ahead the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and re-establishing stability in Iraq, a Royal Court statement said. --SP 2224 Local Time 1924 GMT
