Minister of Communications and IT Technology, Marwan Jum’a said that the communications and IT sector is one of the most important movers of growth in Jordan.
He further added that the focus on this sector began in 1999 upon King Abdullah II’s assumption of His constitutional authorities, noting that His Majesty’s vision and directives focused on investing in the human resources in the internet, which should contribute to the possibility of exporting expertise and programs in the most idealist method to eventually upgrade the sector.
Jum’a pointed out in his interview with “This Morning” program broadcast on GAM FM (Hawa Amman 105.9) that the size of this sector did not exceed 300 million dollars in 1999 without exports, and the workers were estimated to be 3000 only.
He further added that after ten years of incessant work, we reached important figures, whereas the size reached 2.3 billion dollars in 2008, and the number of workers directly involved in the sector reached 16 thousand, and those indirectly involved reached 55 thousand, with exports rising from zero to quarter of a million, mostly to the Gulf and America.
The Minister stressed that the value added to the exports is clearly reflected in the gross domestic production, pointing out that exports are not limited only to packed programs or sets, but they also include programs and solutions, developed in Jordan, by Jordanian experts.
Still in the program, the Minister announced that the Ministry shall launch a number of services this year, including vocational licenses which will enable the companies sector to apply for vocational licenses, and eventually acquire them electronically.
This service, the Minister further added, will be launched this year, noting that the role of the Ministry shall be represented by training, procedures, and any pertinent laws.
In a joint effort, the Ministries of Communications and IT, and the Public Sector Development will launch, as a pilot project, the service of receiving citizens’ complaints on line, through the National Communications Center.
The Minister further delineated that any citizen may contact the Center by phone, and fills a complaint which will be duly followed up through a program designed locally in Jordan, referring to the fact that there will be liaison officers in the complaints unit to ascertain that the complaints are referred to the proper concerned departments.
In the program presented by “ Ahmad Faheem “ , the IT Minister unveiled the intention to expand this service in the future to include, in addition to contacting the Center, rendering a service via a computer, through a site to be launched for this purpose soon, or via a message over the cell phone, by way of a specially installed program.
From his end, the Executive Director of IT, Engineer Sakhr Al Khreisha said that GAM has been selected as one of the institutions of the electronic government simply because its services are varied and address each and every citizen.
Engineer Al Khreisha pointed out that there are 50 IT centers covering the various regions of the Capital to enable citizens to browse through the internet, and use the computer. He said that there are also 8 stations of knowledge that provide computer training courses.
The IT official highlighted the most important GAM services on its web site, which allow the citizens enquire about organizational amendments, vocations, acquisitions, and traffic violations. According to Al Khreisha, GAM also renders the services of sms to inform citizens of the due property taxes and remind them of the discount incentives, in addition to the system of complaints and information.