Jordan's $3.15 million wish granted by Japan

The Japanese will provide $3.15 million to the Kingdom in environmental grant.

The Japanese government will extend a 300 million yen ($3.15 million) grants to the Kingdom under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Monday by Planning and International Cooperation Minister Jafar Hassan and Japanese chargé d’affaires Masayuki Miyamoto.

The grant [2] is part of Japan’s new assistance programme that has been launched recently, under its policy to eliminate environmental pollution. The grant will be used to buy Japanese environment-friendly vehicles and equipment needed to operate and maintain them to cut down on environment pollution.

Hassan said the MoU reflects the distinguished Jordanian-Japanese relations [3], especially as it comes amid difficult economic and social challenges, which the country has to deal with, as a result of political regional circumstances. In 2012, Japan extended a soft loan totalling 12 billion yen (the equivalent of $155 million) to Jordan to finance a programme of developing human resources and improving social infrastructure, besides two other grants totalling $3.22 million and $6.78 million.

Between 2007 and 2012, Japan’s assistance to the Kingdom totalled around $273.51 million, of which $117.51 were grants and the remaining tranche were in soft loans, besides technical assistance provided through the Japan International Cooperation Agency [4].