Jordan ICT sector achieves 30 per cent growth in revenues

The rise in exports was contributed primarily through a significant increase in hardware and technology provision services to neighboring Arab markets.

The survey targeted 95 int@j member companies, of which 68 responded; related to the number of companies in Jordanian IT sector can be estimated to have grown to a total figure of 373 companies, an estimate referring to statistics provided by the Jordan Ministry of Industry & Trade.

"Over the last few years, the ICT sector in Jordan has succeeded in positioning itself among the leading and fastest growing markets in the region; the results of our exports are further proof on the capabilities of this dynamic sector in sharing its expertise and solutions with regional and international markets," said Marwan Juma, chairman of int@j. "The development and the growth of the ICT sector has played a crucial role in creating new job opportunities and has been one of the key contributors in the growth of various other sectors."

The int@j survey results showed that the total number of employees who were employed by the 95 member companies reached 3,550 at the end of 2003 (excluding employees from the Kingdom's four telecommunication companies, including Jordan Telecom, Fastlink, MobileCom and XPress Telecom). The job categories were as we per the following: 57% technical, 16% marketing and sales, 17% administrative and 10% management.

The number of employees who were employed at the four telecommunications companies in Jordan hit 4,567 employees, where 45% were employed in technical, 40% in marketing and sales, 11% in administrative and 4% in management.

"Jordan is heading towards building its capacity; the co-operation between the private and public sectors in the ICT arena is a key driver toward achieving success and prominent results in this market today," said Bilal Abuzeid, CEO of int@j. "By having such promising results in growth and development, we believe that we are on the right path in achieving our goals in both the private and public sectors."

The domestic revenues of the Kingdom's ICT sector reached US$ 226,183,000, achieving a growth of 20% compared to 2002. As for the export revenues, it achieved 74% growth compared to 2002, reaching a total of US$ 69,728,000. The total revenues of the sector hit US$ 295,910,000 achieving a 30% growth in comparison with 2002, whereas cumulative investments grew by 17% to US$ 79,656,250.

Export revenues from the IT consulting sector hit US$ 2,820,000 (contributing to 4% of the total revenues), the software development revenues reached US$ 25,829,000 (37% of total revenues), the communication and Internet services achieved US $4,203,000 (6% of total revenues), the hardware sales and technology provision reached US$ 25,920,000 (37% of total revenues), and the licensing revenues reached US$ 10,956, 000 (16% of total revenues).

The total exports from Jordan's ICT sector reached US$ 69,728,000, with US$28,059,000 to other Arab countries (40% of total exports). The sector's export to the gulf countries reached US$ 26,098,000 (37% of the total exports), US$ 13,053,000 to the Americas (19% of the total exports), US$ 2,323,000 to Europe (3% of total exports), US$ 118,000 to South East Asia (1% of total exports) and US$ 77,000 to Africa.

"We believe that the 2003 survey results showed some very positive indicators to the growth of this vital sector, and this will drive us to further develop new services in order to increase our revenues by further our reach into new markets," said Juma.