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First: Directed Planning and the Leading Government Role
Jordan has adopted directed planning within the framework of a market economy, granting the private sector a primary role in investment and production. However, the success of this approach requires a more effective government role in identifying promising sectors, coordinating policies, preparing investment opportunities, and monitoring their implementation.
Here, a distinction must be made between comprehensive planning, which links sectors within an integrated national vision, and holistic planning, in which the state manages most economic activities. What is required is to enhance the government's ability to guide development, not to expand into managing projects.
The Japanese experience offers a model for leveraging coordination between the state and the private sector in developing industry, technology, and exports, while taking into account the specificities of the Jordanian economy.
It is essential to prepare a package of well-studied national projects in industry, agriculture, energy, and technology, including feasibility studies and indicators for employment and value-added. It is also proposed to establish a unified national platform for ready-made investment opportunities, identifying their financing needs and the entities responsible for them, while prioritizing provincial projects and linking small enterprises with major industries.
Second: Integration of Planning and Linking Programs to Results
Jordan possesses a significant base of infrastructure, human capital, and institutions. However, maximizing their returns requires linking sectoral plans with budgets and executive programs, and directing resources toward projects with the highest economic and social feasibility.
It is important to distinguish between economic growth, which measures the increase in production, and economic development, which includes improving the standard of living, providing job opportunities, and achieving balance between governorates.
Jordanian planning experiences, including previous five-year plans, confirm the importance of aligning goals, funding, and executive capabilities, and avoiding the duplication of projects or their geographic and sectoral concentration without sufficient study.
This requires developing databases, adopting published performance indicators, and conducting periodic reviews of implementation stages, which enhances accountability, spending efficiency, and confidence in economic policies.
Third: Investment Security and Judicial Specialization
The attractiveness of investment is not limited to incentives and infrastructure, but is also linked to the stability of legislation, the speed of procedures, and the effectiveness of dispute resolution.
In this context, the study of establishing a specialized court for investment and trade, or strengthening existing judicial departments, deserves serious institutional attention to ensure the speedy resolution of disputes without compromising the independence of the judiciary and the guarantees of justice.
Furthermore, training judges in economic and financial cases, developing electronic litigation, and accelerating the enforcement of judgments are tools to enhance investment security and the confidence of local and foreign investors.
An investor does not look for incentives alone, but for a stable institutional environment that ensures the clarity of rights and obligations and limits unexpected risks and costs.
Conclusion: From Planning to Achievement
As Jordan enters its second centennial, an opportunity emerges to strengthen an economic approach based on initiative, production, and institutional integration, benefiting from the Kingdom's location, human capital, and international relations.
The real challenge lies not in the multiplicity of plans and strategies, but in transforming them into executable projects, tangible job opportunities, and added value to the national economy.
The success of planning remains contingent upon the clarity of priorities, the efficiency of implementation, accountability for results, and a balanced partnership between the state and the private sector that makes sustainable development and improving the citizen's life the primary standard for achievement.
- Researcher and Strategic Planner
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