Nayrouz News Agency : The Kingdom’s tourism revenues decreased by 10.7 per cent to JD784 million in the first quarter of 2020 after achieving a growth rate of 13.6 per cent during the first two months of the year, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) announced on Monday.

In March alone, tourism revenues dropped by 56.5 per cent, according to CBJ data cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The decline is expected to worsen during the first seven months of 2020.

The Kingdom is predicted to witness improvement during the final third of the year, provided that the epidemiological situation on the local and regional levels continues to improve, the CBJ said.

However, the drop in Jordanians’ expenditures on outbound tourism by 60.3 per cent in March contributed to alleviating the negative impact of the reduction in the Kingdom’s tourism revenues.

CBJ data also showed that Jordanian expatriates’ remittances in the first quarter of the year declined by 5.4 per cent to JD600 million, while in March alone remittances dropped by 6.8 per cent.

The bank said that the reserves of foreign currencies stand at "comfortable and high” levels within internationally accredited criteria, as that the foreign currency reserves by the end of March stood at $14.3 billion, enough to cover the Kingdom’s imports of goods and services for 7.9 months.

The Kingdom’s tourism income increased in 2019 to reach around JD4.11 billion, marking a 10.2 per cent growth compared with 2018, the CBJ said.