Jordan's Finance Minister Ziyad Fariz resigned on Tuesday after the government overruled his recommendation to hike petrol prices to curb a spiralling budget deficit, officials said.
Prime Minister Marouf a-Bakheet told reporters the government had rejected any new hike of petroleum products and petrol that was widely expected by the end of the month, saying it would have hurt low-income Jordanians, who make up the majority of the country's 5.6 million population.
Fariz had argued that the rise in world oil prices would derail efforts to trim a budget deficit of the energy dependent economy to 2.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2007. This compares with a budget deficit of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2006.
Fariz is a reformist who won the respect of the IMF and World Bank during stints as a key economic decision maker. The IMF had said the budget outcome would be highly sensitive to oil price developments with an oil price increase of $5 a barrel adding about one percentage point of gross domestic product to the budget deficit.
The country's oil imports have soared and the US and Gulf states cut back assistance to the government. Jordan's imports most of its energy at commercial rates from Saudi Arabia.
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