AMMAN: Jordan may have little in the way of oil or gas, but the country is overcoming nature’s shortfalls by building resources of its own, creating an information and communications technology (ICT) sector that is fast becoming a mainstay of the economy.
The importance of the ICT industry, and the progress made by the sector over the past decade, were underscored in a report commissioned by the government at the end of last year. Prepared by Y-Consult and Dajani Consulting for the Ministry of ICT, the study showed the sector represented 14.3 percent of GDP in 2008, making it one of the largest single contributors to the economy.
Just as significantly for an economy that has to provide enough jobs to meet the demands of a growing labor force, the expansion of the ICT industry had resulted in some 80,000 new positions being created between 1999 and 2008. Of these, the report said, 16,650 were direct jobs within the industry, a further 49,852 were indirect jobs and the remaining 15,365 were listed as induced positions.
While highlighting the successes of the industry, the report also stressed the need for additional measures to ensure the advantages created by Jordan’s ICT sector flowed on to other segments of the economy. These measures included steps to further integrate the ICT sector with other fields, increasing the awareness on how ICT can play a greater role in boosting revenues, and encouraged e-content creation and e-commerce practices.
The need to increase the take up of ICT across the economy is one of the challenges facing Jordan’s new minister of ICT, Marwan Juma. Appointed in mid-December, Juma held a series of senior positions in the private sector, serving as chief executive officer of mobile phone company Xpress Telecommunications, chairman of industry lobby int@j and founder and chairman web development firm Dot.Jo.
The ICT minister understands that several issues must be tackled in order to optimize the sector.
"We need to address the national capacity, work on the national broadband network, lower the price of WiMAX, lower the price of frequency outside the capital city for wireless technologies, and bring in NTE and 4G as well," he told OBG
Although the government is firmly committed to promoting the use of IT, a recent report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests that the country’s business community is lagging somewhat in adopting and adapting these new solutions to its existing problems.
It its "Global Information Technology Report 2009-10", released in late March, the WEF ranked Jordan 44th out of 133 countries on its networked readiness index for ICT development, the same as in the previous year.
However, while the government’s prioritization of ICT was rated 21st globally, and the importance of IT to the government’s vision of the future ranked Jordan 23rd in the world, the private business community fared less well. The WEF rated Jordan’s overall business readiness at 73rd, with staff training coming in at 67th and company spending on research and development at 108th.
In mid-January, Hewlett-Packard signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government setting out the terms under which the company would establish a regional competency centre in Jordan to serve the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa regions. The centre will initially provide technology services, but could potential develop into one of the company’s international service delivery centers, Hewlett-Packard officials said.
Hewlett-Packard may not be the only ICT major to set up shop in Jordan. At a recent IT conference in Dubai, Juma made a concerted pitch to Google, the world’s leading internet search engine. Responding to comments by Vint Cerf, a vice-president of Google and widely seen as one of the pioneers of the internet, that the Arab world needed to embrace technological innovation for future growth, Juma said the only way Google could help Arabs "transform our part of the world is by being in our part of the world".
Last year saw Intel invest in two Jordanian firms – Jeeran, an online community with over 1m users, and ShooFeeTV, a content aggregator – through its Intel Capital Middle East and Turkey fund, while Yahoo swooped in to acquire Maktoob.com, one of the biggest and oldest Arabic content providers based in Amman.
It is clear that Jordan is already punching above its weight in the fight to attract serious ICT investment, aiming to move up a division or two in the coming years as it seeks to further increase the sector’s share of GDP and bolster the country’s regional and global rankings.
