Jordan PM attends award distribution ceremony

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Thursday attended a ceremony to honour the winners of the King Abdullah II Award for Free Works and Entrepreneurship.
Ensour said that the world has been moving over the past two decades towards Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as micro projects, noting that the contribution of private sector labour force in SMEs in Jordan has reached to the extent of 95 percent.
He highlighted the importance of the strategic Development and Employment Fund which enables citizens to secure jobs by providing loans to support setting up of projects.
The prime minister said that the number of funds and institutions involved in offering loans in Jordan now stands at 10.
The government, Enosur said, pays utmost attention to any activities that contribute towards job creation in remote areas and governorates across the Kingdom, noting that these help in reducing poverty and unemployment.
The prime minister pointed to the increasingly bloated public sector in the Kingdom, noting that the percentage of employees in the public sector stands at 43 percent while the average in other countries ranges between 14-15 percent.
During the ceremony, Enosur distributed awards to the winners and honored the national institutions supporting the award.
Minister of Labour and Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Nidal Qatamin said total loans offered by the Development and Employment Fund since its establishment in 1991 until 2013 stood at JD200 million, adding that the loans were used to establish 68,000 projects.