{"id":33668,"date":"2019-03-01T03:23:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T03:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33668"},"modified":"2019-03-01T03:23:39","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T03:23:39","slug":"uk-to-double-support-for-jordan-over-next-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33668","title":{"rendered":"UK to double support for Jordan over next five years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nLONDON: Britain on Thursday doubled its bilateral support funding to Jordan, pledging \u00a3650 million over five years.<\/p>\n

\nThe UK government hosted a ministerial conference to promote growth and investment opportunities in Jordan, inviting a host of senior financial representatives, non-profit organizations and several business and economic delegations from around the world.<\/p>\n

\nThe conference fulfills a pledge by Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 to encourage the partnership between the United Kingdom and Jordan, according to the UK Minister of State for the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis has been a really good conference and we are very pleased to hold it here because London is a great place to bring people together. We\u2019ve had very high level representation, senior foreign ministers, from not only the region but all over the world,\u201d Alistair Burt told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAmong the attendees were King Abdullah II and May and her Jordanian counterpart Omar Razzaz.<\/p>\n

\nOver the next five years the UK\u2019s bilateral support to Jordan includes a new \u00a350 million contribution to the World Bank\u2019s Global Concessional Financing Facility, the UK\u2019s Department for International Development said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThis will include grant-financing to enable Jordan to undertake key economic reforms and will go towards a youth, technology and jobs programme with a focus on jobs and business opportunities for Syrian refugees.<\/p>\n

\nIt will also include a \u00a314 million contribution to a new World Bank led trust fund for Jordan aimed at modernising government systems, promoting exports and making doing business easier.<\/p>\n

\nIn addition, the UK will underwrite a $250 million World Bank loan to Jordan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nOver the last five years, the UK\u2019s support was around \u00a3300 million to Jordan.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe conference was designed to showcase how Jordan can demonstrate how its meeting its economic challenges, the reforms it was putting in place, and what it offered to private investors, as well as people who wanted to take part in infrastructure projects and we think it\u2019s fulfilling all those objectives,\u201d Burt said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe had the chief executive of Jaguar and Land Rover, a major world company, saying we are investing in Jordan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAnd of course business talks to business, a minister telling businesses to invest might not have consequences, but it\u2019s different if a business is saying we can invest here, and we can provide more for the people of Jordan both in education terms and employment terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBurt also discussed some of the key issues effecting the region and relations with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\nAsked whether the British government was lobbying Germany to reverse an arms embargo that was placed on Saudi Arabia, Burt said his colleagues are talking to their German counterparts about the issue and that the UK recognizes its strategic defensive relationship with the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis means that we continue to support our partner and there are some impacts of the German situation,\u201d Burt said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe are extremely conscious of the impact of a decision by a sovereign country and a partner country and relations to the arms embargo, we take a different view of course, we have very strict export controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe said Saudi Arabia had been generous in its support for Jordan and the humanitarian needs in Yemen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe minister said he visited Riyadh a couple of weeks ago and again the importance of that relation was evidently clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAsked whether the British government was concerned over the aspects of the Trump administration\u2019s deferred Middle East peace plan, Burt said: \u201cAt first, like everyone else, we need to see what the plan actually is.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe United Kingdom is certainly in no better position than anyone else to know any of the details. We have expressed our concern about unilateral decisions taken by the United States in relation to Jerusalem and refugees and we have made it very clear this is not our position.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe remain of the view that the Middle East peace process is fundamental to world politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRegarding the issue of Shamima Begum, the teenager who fled the UK to join Daesh, and is now in a refugee camp in Syria, Burt said the legal position of her situation will be resolved in due course.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere is very strong feeling in the United Kingdom in relation to what she has done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON: Britain on Thursday doubled its bilateral support funding to Jordan, pledging \u00a3650 million over five years. The UK government hosted a ministerial conference to promote growth and investment opportunities in Jordan, inviting a host of senior financial representatives, non-profit organizations and several business and economic delegations from around the world. The conference fulfills a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}