JORDAN NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY (2013-2017) The Strategy15 ICT provides Jordan with a unique opportunity to develop a competitive and sustainable export oriented industry. Jordan’s strategic challenge is to focus national effort and resources (private and public sector) to extract the greatest opportunity for the country to create jobs and export driven economic growth. The national ICT strategy should focus on leveraging identified national strengths. Currently general national strengths are university educated labor, high levels of literacy, and relatively good ICT infrastructure. To maintain competitiveness in this sector, it is imperative that the public and private sector work to ensure that education and ICT infrastructure remain internationally competitive and improve. Strategically, Jordan should focus on areas of established competitiveness and sectors where value creation is possible through the facilitation of economic clustering and integration. This means identifying those economic sectors where Jordan has demonstrated ability over time to consistently provide internationally and regionally competitive services or products. Additionally, Jordan should focus on integrating and serving regional value chains as well to improve overall regional competitiveness. This can include sectors such as the oil and gas industry, water desalination and management as well as banking and finance. These are areas where Jordan does not necessarily have established competency, but can develop a capability to serve these regional market needs through such ICT services as localized content and BPO development. Over the past several decades Jordan has distinguished itself across several sectors. These sectors are: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) Pharmaceuticals Healthcare/medical tourism Architecture and Engineering Tourism Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Logistics Banking and Finance Education The majority of these sectors are represented in the Jordanian National Competitiveness and Innovation Council, a public private partnership, hosted at the competitiveness department at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC). Additionally, Jordan must develop technical competence in clean technology as well as design intensive manufacturing. Both these sectors address pressing strategic national needs in terms of energy dependence and water security (clean technology) as well as job creation and export opportunities (design intensive manufacturing). These sectors provide the ICT sector with a unique opportunity to develop products and services based on their intersections. Development of industry specific products and services will help in national ICT diffusion. 15 Annexes 1,2, and 3 discuss in details the current “Limitations”, how to “Turn Challenges into Opportunities”, and “Where to Focus and Why”. 16