Since independence, Jordan has imported far more than it has exported. Throughout the 1970s, the gap widened as imports grew faster than exports.

Trade Balance

Jordan did not seek to achieve a trade balance with any major trading partner. In the mid-1980s, the United States and Western Europe supplied almost 50 percent of Jordan's imports, while Arab nations purchased nearly half of the country's exports.

Although Jordan's merchandise trade deficit was always high, the total volume of external trade--defined as imports plus exports--was much higher, indicating that exports were significant enough to offset part of the large import bill. Between 1982 and 1985, as economic growth slowed, import volume contracted by about 4 percent per year. Exports grew by about 5 percent per year during the same period, shrinking the annual trade deficit from more than JD800 million in the early 1980s to JD623 million in 1985. In 1987 the total value of imports was about JD916 million while total exports were valued at about JD249 million, leaving a trade deficit of JD667 million.

Data as of December 1989