Amman Stock Exchange received the 2007 annual reports for 227 public shareholding companies, constituting 97% of the total Market Capitalization of the ASE. The results revealed remarkable improvement during last year. All in all, 175 companies achieved net after-tax profit during 2007. The financial statements for the 227 companies revealed a growth in their total assets by the end of the year 2007 by 16.2% compared with the year 2006, reaching JD 48.7 billion (some US$68 billion) and a growth in the shareholders equity by 17.7% reaching JD 11.5 billion (US$16 billion).
The net after-tax profit for these companies reached JD 1255.4 million (US$1757 billion) for the year 2007 in comparison with JD 609.6 million (US$853 million) for the year 2006, an increase of 40.5%. The number of companies which distributed cash dividends reached 94 companies for the year 2007 against 73 companies in 2006.
At the sectoral level, the net after-tax profit for the industrial sector increased to JD 303.3 million (US$424 million) for the year 2007 compared with JD 168.5 million (US$236 million) for the year 2006, an increase of 84.3%. The financial sector tax profit increased to JD 760.1 million (US$1064 million) compared with JD 580.1 million (US$812 million) for the year 2006, an increase of 31.0% and for the services sector the net profit reached JD 192.0 million (US$269 million) compared with JD 147.8 million (US$207 million) for the year 2006 an increase of 29.8%.
The net after-tax profit for the financial sector constitutes 60.6% from the total after-tax profit for all sectors whereas the most growing sub-sectors in net post-tax profit were: media, diversified financial services, transportation, real estate, insurance, and mining and extraction industries, as the after-tax profit for these sectors increased by 732.3%, 699.1%, 498.1%, 242.1%, 156.8% and 125.8% respectively .
