Amman- Jordan’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury has stressed that the United States will provide 1.3 billion dollars worth of assistance to Jordan this year to help it confront the burden of Syrian refugees.

Fakhoury, who visited Washington last week, said that the US Congress has already approved the aid.

During his visit to the US, the minister held meetings with top figures in the Trump administration, including officials from the White House, the State and Treasury Departments and members of Congress.

Upon his return to Amman, Fakhoury said that the US aid includes around 812 million dollars of economic assistance and a 475-million-dollar grant to support the state budget.

The minister said that during his visit to the US, he stressed the special and historic ties between the two countries in all fields. He discussed with the US officials prospects for assistance to Jordan in 2018.

Discussions also focused on renewing the Jordanian-US memorandum of understanding for 2018-2022, governing the military and economic aid to Jordan.

In a related development, Jordan signed 52.8 million dollars soft loan and grant agreements with the World Bank and Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) to support the state budget and finance social projects targeting youths in the Kingdom, the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation said in a statement.

Fakhoury said the first agreement is a 50 million dollar support to the Kingdom budget, of which 36.1 million were granted as a soft loan, while the remaining 13.9 million were a grant within the Concessional Financing Facility (CFF), which was launched last year and is run by the World Bank.

The second agreement is a 2.8 million grant by the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF), which aims to provide integrated social services for youths in the Kingdom.