Factors Affecting the Growth of Investment in Achieving Economic Development in Jordan - an Empirical Study

Abstract

AbstractInvestment is one of the most important economic activities that enjoy great importance and attention in most countries of the world. The aim of this research is to shed light on the factors affecting the growth of investment in achieving economic development in Jordan. This study is based on a sample of 116 investment companies using the stratified random sampling technique, which is exploratory in nature and depends mainly on primary data and uses quantitative methods to analyze the data. This study aimed to identify the factors driving investment, which play an important role in the development of the Jordanian economy during the era of the Fourth Kingdom. The study revealed the presence of seven main important factors that encourage investment and include, according to their importance, security and political stability, incentives and facilities, guarantees, legal environment and stability of legislation, modern infrastructure, stability of the financial and banking system, openness of the country and easy access to global markets. As for the unimportant factors from the investors’ point of view, which are not important in determining the decision to invest or not in Jordan, according to the study, they included quality of life, labor and workforce efficiency. The study also aimed to determine the most important benefits and obstacles to investing in Jordan from the point of view of investors. Where the results of the statistical analysis showed that the strong desire to increase income is one of the most important benefits desired from investment and contribute to improving the standard of living of individuals as the least benefit. While the most important obstacles to investment were the administrative bureaucracy and the least influential was the monopoly of feasible investment opportunities by a specific group of investors.KeywordsInvestment factorsEconomic developmentEconomic stabilityInvestment benefitsInvestment obstaclesJordan