The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation Tuesday said that foreign assistance (in grants and soft loans) stood at $1.5 billion in the January-July period of the current year.

The ministry told the Jordan News Agency (Petra) that foreign assistance includes $187.5 million in the form of grants and $1.1 million in the form of soft loans to support the general budget and to finance top priority projects in the sectors of social protection, employment, economic development and infrastructure, as well as additional grants to the Jordan Response Plan to the Syrian crisis, amounting to $252.5 million.

The ministry is also working to allocate foreign aid to implement top priority development programs and projects in accordance with the set plans and in coordination with all ministries and government institutions. By the end of July 2022, about 70 percent of the overall foreign aid was allocated to support the implementation of programs and projects outlined in the general budget law, while the other programs and projects were implemented by donors and funders and under the direct supervision of the ministries and institutions benefiting from these projects.

Official data issued by the ministry indicated that the social protection sector took the lion's share of foreign aid, accounting for 45.7 percent, followed by the economic development sector with 32.7 percent, the employment sector with 8.7 percent, the infrastructure sector with 7.6 percent, and agriculture and food security by 2.5 percent, while the remaining amount was distributed among other sectors.