The Jordanian Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Jordan announced today (Tuesday) the successful completion of the issuance of "Eurobond" bonds in global markets, with a value of $1.25 billion, at a fixed coupon rate (interest) of 7.5 percent, due after five years and nine months, i.e. in January 2029.

In a joint statement with the Central Bank of Jordan, the Jordanian Ministry of Finance said that this year it was able to reduce the coupon rate by 25 basis points from last year's issuance, when it was 7.75, despite the US Federal Reserve raising interest seven times since the previous issuance.

The statement quoted Jordanian Finance Minister Muhammad Al-Ississ as saying, "The issuance targeted a subscription size of $750 million, but offers submitted by investors amounted to more than $4.7 billion, or 6 times the target size."

And that this high coverage enabled us to raise the value of the issuance to $1.25 billion, indicating that part of this amount will be used to pay off previous, higher-cost debts.

The number of investment institutions that participated in the subscription exceeded 230 institutions, including the most important and largest global investment funds in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

According to the statement, many investors praised the financial and monetary stability in Jordan despite the global economic instability during the previous years, which reduced the risk factor for Jordan and thus the bond interest.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, Adel Sharkas, indicated that the high volume of demand for the issuance reflects the confidence of international investors in Jordan's stability and wise leadership, in addition to the solid fundamentals of the Jordanian economy, supported by its prudent fiscal and monetary policies.

This issuance comes within the financing budget included in the General Budget Law for the year 2023, and therefore it falls within the expected debt for this year and will not increase its value.

Jordan's public debt increased by six percent during the first 11 months of 2022, to reach 30.4 billion dinars (about $42.8 billion), compared to 28.7 billion dinars at the end of 2021.

Statistics published on the website of the Ministry of Finance showed that the internal debt amounted to 14.25 billion dinars at the end of November, while the external debt recorded about 16.16 billion dinars.