Amman - Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) Governor Umayyah Touqan on Sunday expected the US financial crisis and the subsequent economic slowdown to put downward pressure on oil prices. "The economic slowdown in the United States and leading European countries will affect the performance of the world economy in the long term and help reduce prices of oil and food, which is a positive aspect," Touqan said in an interview with the official Petra news agency.
However, Touqan said that declining world demand would have "a negative impact on exports of developing countries."
He said Jordanian banks were in a "safe position in general, thanks to the precautionary measures taken by the CBJ."
These measures included imposing limits on lending to the country's real estate sector and investments of local banks in foreign assets, he said.
Touqan pledged that the CBJ, through its monetary tools, would provide the Jordanian economy with the amount of liquidity as required by the country's growth rate which reached 6.7 per cent in the second quarter of the year.
