 However, what we do with that neighborhood, within that neighborhood, is a matter of choice and a matter of determination. Jordan has been, through the last hundred years, since its inception, determined to do good and do well. Do good with its neighbors, mend fences, build bridges, host refugees, lessen the pain associated with all the crises, and at the same time be a safe, stable environment for business and for economy. It's gotten harder over the last ten years, but we're determined. We have a vision that we're working to realize about resilience, about renaissance, the future of Jordan, and we're thinking about it in terms of our youth, empowering them economically and politically. We're thinking of it in terms of renewable energy and moving away from traditional sort of fossil fuels and developing a model of a country, as I said, that does good and does well at the local for its own population, at the regional and at a global level. As the international response and the U.S. response been enough, I'd say we've had the U.S. and many other countries that have come forward to help Jordan in major ways, realizing that a lot of the debt that we've incurred over the last ten years, the slow economic growth and all of these things are not, they didn't happen because Jordan was partying. They happened because we were surrounded by crises that spilled over in Jordan. So we got a lot of friends and we have a lot of support. The question for us is how do we now together move from a sort of a band-aid type approach to resolving the crises that we are facing to a sustainable, growth-oriented approach that realizes the full potential of Jordan. Jordan is a small country but has an incredible, it has human capital, it has infrastructure, it has resources, highly educated. During those difficulties, we were exporting our best and brightest all over the world. And that's great. But now we want to say we are back in business and we want to have both our talented population but also investors, businessmen and service provider, businesses from all over the world come to Jordan and realize the share with our dream of renaissance in the Middle East. Walk me through some of those potential partners because we've seen the United States in particular withdrawing under the Trump administration. Who are you looking to for potential investment partners when we're talking about the global investment scene? Are we looking to Europe? Are we looking to Russia? Well, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, the United States has not withdrawn from Jordan and its support for Jordan, neither financially nor policy-wise and politics-wise. Jordan has had very clear positions on issues of a Palestinian state, the capital of which is Jerusalem. We've had strong issues about Syria united and reaching a political solution for the crisis. And this has not damaged our relationship with the United States. So we have this goodwill, frankly, with the U.S., with the Europeans, with a lot of our neighbors in the Gulf, Iraq, Egypt. And it's partly because Jordan has historically played that role of trying to be a bridge within the region and on a global level towards peace, understanding, respect, tolerance. And it's been hard, but it pays off because we do have access to these resources. Walk me through what happens next in Syria because one of the themes this year at Davos has been the potential reconstruction of Syria, the different companies across the Middle East that are looking to get involved in that space. One question, though, the U.S. Congress has just passed a bill whereby they would potentially sanction any country or business that decided to do business in Syria. Will that stop Jordan from moving forward with their plans? Well, for us being having long borders with Syria and having 1.3 million Syrian refugees, the story is a bit complicated, and I think the U.S. understands that. But not Congress, potentially. Well, no, we're explaining the complexity of the situation because you have almost now more than 10 percent of the Jordan's population are Syrian refugees. More than 10 percent are refugees from other countries. So we do have a unique situation. We do, we have maintained that we are very much for a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis and for Syria to extend its authority over the whole territory of Syria. And for things to get back to normal eventually, because we do want a Levant that's at peace with itself, that builds relationships, we've moved very strongly on very concrete steps with Iraq, which has been a neighbor and a partner for a very long time. So the challenge with refugees, Syrian and others before it, is you get the immediate reaction, international reaction, is relief, the support with relief of refugees providing them with direct aid, et cetera. And that's fine and needed, and it helped a lot. But what we're seeing is a new model, I think, global model, where the West is saying refugees need to stay in their region of origin and not move to the West. Now, we accept that, but that's a global, there's a global cost and there's a public good now being provided by countries like Jordan, Jordan's not the only one, that hosts refugees, and in this case, not for six months and a year. Now we're in the ninth year of the crisis and we're committed, because His Majesty, the King, is committed to the idea that we host refugees and that we serve them and no child would be left behind in Jordan in terms of education and health and even access to the labor market. So that's costly on the long term. So if they want to expect that you're going to keep people over the long term, they're going to have to pony up to help you do it. That's what we're posing as a question. How do we come up with a model that says, OK, certain countries are going to look across their borders and see waves of refugees coming. They need to make that decision on opening their borders on pure humanitarian basis, but they need to understand that there will be global support, that it's not going to be subject to donor fatigue quickly because the countries that are receiving the refugees are experiencing host country exhaustion, not fatigue. So we need a long term structure for helping countries like Jordan be able to help refugees invest in their human capital education health and skills and one day help them repatriate in their countries. Would you see that help coming from the West or more particularly, does the honest need to be on countries in the region, like Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, to help Jordan in that regard? Because they're all interconnected, particularly the economies. And they've all helped. Saudi Arabia has been, has offered great help for Jordan. Same with the Emirates, same with Kuwait, Qatar. Lots of countries have offered help in Europe, definitely Asia, Japan, the United States. The challenge is we know that this eventually the issue sort of on the barometer of media starts to be third and fifth and 30th eventually. How do you move from this being a top issue that is on people's mind and they allocate resources versus the medium and long term requirements to make this a viable model for certain countries to say, okay, we're going to take the brunt of it, but we need medium and long term help. And in terms of what happens next for Jordan, you're looking, as you say, to revitalize, revamp your economy in the sense that you want to be open for business. What's the sell there? Because you have a conference coming up in London and you're looking to promote several sectors. Walk us through that. Well, the sell is that with everything that's happened over the last ten years, crisis after the other. This is a country that's maintained its political, social and economic stability. We took very harsh measures, macroeconomic measures when these were needed. Fiscally, we're doing well. But you did pay a political cost. It was a huge political cost. Including losing your predecessor. Yes, it was a political cost for the government. It was a political cost for the people. Unemployment among youth is approaching 40% in Jordan. There's war shortage, schools overcrowded, classrooms overcrowded, et cetera. So the average Jordanian citizen very much feels the pressure of the last ten years. So what our challenge is to say, bear with us as we get ourselves out of this because we have everything that it takes. We have everything that it takes. If you look at Jordan's economy, our growth in the last four, five years has been around 2%, which is not what we expect. There was one time when we were growing at 7% and 8%. And if you look at our economy, it ranges from the high-end research, sink-and-tron accelerator, that 12 different countries are involved in doing physics research and chemistry research and pharmaceuticals research and archeology research in that place, all the way to semi-skilled and low-skilled garment work that 200 firms selling to J.C. Penney and Gap and Walmart. So you have that whole spectrum. And you have creative industries working. We have a great cinema industry hosting movies like The Martian and Star Wars. And for those with gray hair, the Lawrence of Arabia, who can have seen that. So Jordan has, we have a great pharmaceutical sector, health care. IT is prime in the region. But sir, one of the things that so many investors that I speak to say to me is that they want to put more money in Jordan. They want to be more invested in Jordan and build their businesses. But they're still unclear from the government in terms of a strategy and not just a one-year strategy. They want to know five and 10 years down the road what they can expect in terms of regulation. And that's why they would prefer potentially to go to the U.K. or to the United States somewhere they can be sure that the next round of people that were put into government, the next round of politicians that come in, aren't going to change the game on them. Because that's frankly all about investor risk and sentiment. Absolutely. Now, the message we are sending in very clearly is we have started getting our house in order. We've taken the fiscal measures that we need to take. We've taken the governance measures. We have very transparent procurement laws. We even have disclosure policies about what public officials own every year. We all have to disclose. So we're getting to an environment that is predictable, that is safe, that is transparent. And we're committed to it for the long term. Has Jordan had to make hard choices over the last three, four years? Yes, we have. Have we had to decrease our public expenditure by 8% which is among the biggest shifts even compared to countries like Spain and Italy and Greece and Argentina? Yes, we have. But these were harsh measures we took. And maybe they shocked some of the private sector in Jordan, but we had to do it so that we create a stable macroeconomic environment. Now, for the first time, our deficit is 2% as opposed to 5.8% at one point. Our debt to GDP is going down rather than up. And we're preparing for a series of events. The upcoming one is a London conference where we're going to look at the structural transformation that the economy is going to dealing with a debt facility that will help us smooth the debt structure over the next four or five years. And more importantly, the business environment and a pipeline of projects, part of which we have. A lot of it related to energy and moving towards renewable energy, but other sectors as well whether we're talking creative industry, tourism, the IT, which has always been a back office services, mainly for the Gulf regions, helping with the reconstruction of Iraq and Syria, some of the trade agreements that are fantastic that we have with the United States, with Europe, with East Africa. All of this, I think, allows us now to have a different narrative, if you will, about the future. And when you look at cross-border trade in particular, one of the conversations we've been having alongside this World Economic Forum is the need to scale businesses inside the region. And obviously, we've seen the United Arab Emirates in Saudi Arabia recently coming to an agreement in terms of making that a much more fluid process in terms of cross borders and regulation as well. Do you see Jordan making similar agreements with its neighbors? Yes, and I think we have a comparative advantage, especially in exporting services. Today, a company, Microsoft or Expedia or Amazon, based in Jordan, if they have a Jordanian working in the Emirates or Saudi Arabia, it'll cost them five times as much as if that person is working in Jordan providing services in that region. So, all the business process outsourcing is a tremendous comparative advantage because we have a highly educated workforce, highly educated bilingual and can offer tremendous, so we can always improve on trading of goods. But given that energy cost is still relatively high compared to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, where we really have a tremendous comparative advantage is the export of services in general and particularly on business and back office services. I mean, we have tremendous engineering, accounting, legal. So I'm gonna cut you off, only to say, and forgive me, do you think that Jordan has a PR problem in terms of getting that message out there because we all spend a lot of time in Jordan or we're from Jordan, we know the value add, but not necessarily those on the outside and when you look at success stories like Dubai, for example, is the end goal to get toward a Dubai-like model for Jordan or is it something else? I mean, are you going to be able to get that message to investors? Because that's really what it's all about when you craft these conferences. Well, I think we have two types of problems. One, the first one is a, if you will, the neighborhood issue, the neighborhood effect. People don't zero in enough on Jordan, but they see the mess our region's been over the past decade or more and they kind of shy away. So that's a reputation, if you will, issue that we need to clarify. The second is we've had to win ourselves of the public sector and move towards a private sector model, especially taking advantage of our young educated population. So we've had to do a lot of fixing ourselves of our own internal model so that it becomes fiscally and economically sustainable and provide an environment for economic growth. So what I, yes, people have a lot of questions. I think we'd love over the next several events that we're having. We are showing what we have done. We are sharing some experiences. Instead of us talking about Jordan, we are asking the investors and businesses who have invested over the past five years to talk about Jordan in, you know, purely reflecting their own experience. And I think they do a much better job than we can in marketing the country. What I would say is I would really invite investors, industries and service providers to look at Jordan again, from the perspective of what has been achieved, from the perspective of industries located in Jordan, and give it another thought. And if they haven't been to Jordan yet, come as tourists and enjoy Petra and some of the good food and the good weather and make up your mind. When you take a step back and you think about the challenges to what you're trying to achieve, folks here on the ground have been telling me that they are worried about, for example, the Trump administration's desire to remove the United States in so many ways, not just in terms of troop force, but also in terms of a real presence in the region. There are also concerns, deep concerns, about what Russia's role is going to be going forward in spite of the fact that they seem to be very much having an exciting relationship today with Saudi Arabia. There are questions and concerns. There's also concern about what Saudi Arabia's renewed foreign policy efforts in Yemen or what they're doing in Lebanon. All of these things concern investors regionally. When you take a step back and look at the challenges ahead, you're better placed than most people to make decisions about how you strategize that going forward. What's worrying you? Well, I think you've just outlined what one of our major selling points are. We avoid these adventures at the regional level and we try to convince all our partners to try to find peaceful means of settling conflicts in the region. We have not been interested and will not be interested in further polarization in taking sides, et cetera. You can't afford to. We can't afford to. Exactly, thank you, but this is exactly why Jordan has been stable. We've refused again and again taking grisky steps that undermine our sovereignty and undermine our people's livelihood and therefore I think that's why it's been a stable model in a very turbulent region. So for investors who want to see predictable policy at a local, regional, and global level, Jordan has not shifted on its stance towards its neighbors, its own policy, the global policy. Again, we have tried our best to be good citizens of the world and this is a commitment from His Majesty the King down to the average person who's opened their arms and their houses to refugees to welcome them in the country in spite of the hardship that we were experiencing. So this is something that we're very proud of and very committed to and it's almost part of the genetic makeup of the country and its people. And so that I don't think will ever change just because this has been the anchor, I think, and it's provided an anchor for the region to try to reach to understandings around many issues. Your Excellency, I want to close by asking you about what your message is to the young people, not just in Jordan but the region as well, who are concerned about their future, concerned about employment, finding jobs, and having really a stable life given all of those regional conflicts and constraints. What's the message to young people? My message to young people in Jordan and as you said, in the Arab world we've suffered similar situations of youth feeling disempowered, disempowered socially, economically, and politically. And there's nothing harder for a young man or a young woman, especially if you go to school, you go to university to feel then that nobody needs you for anything. It's a very, it's a devastating feeling and it creates anger, it creates frustration, it creates a sense of alienation, and it creates a desire to act against society. And that's where extremism and terrorism comes in the region. Our commitment to that generation is we will do everything we can and we promise to change that status quo. We need our youth. We need them. The Jordan and other countries, we don't have much natural resources to speak of, but fortunately we're going into the fourth industrial revolution which builds on talent, which builds on entrepreneurship, which builds on enthusiasm of youth and their imagination. And that is the environment we will provide and they will need to then take it up and run with it. Your Excellency, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.