His Majesty King Abdullah II's Letter to Dr. Abdullah Ensour In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate Your Excellency Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Peace be upon you, God's mercy and blessings, Jextend to you and to your colleagues in the ministerial team, my greetings and wishes of success, as you carry on your responsibilities diligently and proceed with executing the letter of designation | entrusted you with to realise specific goals, chief among them is securing our citizens with decent living conditions. Today, the Jordanian economy faces a set of difficult challenges, resulting from successive crises as well as international and regional conditions, namely continuous suspensions in Egyptian gas supplies and the ramifications of the Syrian crisis, particularly the influx of Syrian refugees, as Jordan currently hosts 1,300,000 of our brethren Syrians, which is depleting our limited resources and creating enormous pressures on our infrastructure and national economy. This situation has led to an increase in deficit and debt over the past few years. The implications of these difficult economic conditions have left their mark on the standard of living our citizens enjoy. Today, the number one priority and the foremost challenge our citizens face is to improve their living conditions and to secure better jobs that provide them and their families with a decent living and hope for a better future. These are concerns that | witnessed first-hand during my ongoing field visits. Price hikes and financial pressures our citizens face today are the hard realities we need to address. Accordingly, the state — in all its institutions ~ must provide socio-economic solutions and programmes to alleviate these burdens. Over the last few months, I have followed closely the government's performance, and the diligent and well-appreciated efforts it has exerted, which resulted in passing the budget, implementing economic reforms and enacting legislation in cooperation with Parliament. In light of the recent challenges, we affirm our determination to continue developing our national economy and chart our future direction in tandem with efforts to secure decent living standards and a promising bright future for the men 10 and women of our beloved Jordan. Against this backdrop, it is of the utmost urgency that the government devises an economic blueprint to guide our national economy over the next ten years. This economic blueprint should have a comprehensive framework targeting the following: enhancing financial and monetary policies and assuring their consistency; improving economic competitiveness; enhancing values of high productivity and self-reliance to realise sustainable and comprehensive development. In this context, | emphasise that the success of devising this blueprint hinges on adopting a participatory and consultative approach towards all stakeholders, namely governmental institutions, Parliament, private sector, civil society organizations and local communities. The blueprint should build on accumulated efforts and institutional studies, such as the “Privatization Evaluation Committee,” “Governorates Development Strategy,” and “National Employment Strategy,” in an effort to benefit from these strategies in devising future socio-economic policies, with specific programmes and work plans that address short- and long-terms challenges. The blueprint must also build on the government's policy statement and its program for the years 2013-2016, which have been presented to the 17th Lower House in its Extraordinary Session, on which the government won a vote of confidence, in addition to other national economic and political reform programmes. This shall provide a frame of reference for the current and successive governments in achieving sustainable growth rates and enhancing economic reforms. siou WAN