“The latest wave of wealthy Iraqis has brought an extra $2 billion into Jordan, bankers say, driving a boom not seen since the 1991 Gulf War…The influx has fueled both a real estate boom and record sales in consumer goods, from refrigerators to perfumes to hundreds of thousands of duty free cars to Iraq.Iraqi customers driving the latest flashy cars are the favorite big spenders in Jordan’s expanding glitzy shopping malls. The once sleepy neighborhoods of the sprawling capital have been transformed into construction sites where cement mixers work throughout the night as new high rise apartment buildings add to the country’s white quarry stone skyline.
Land registry figures show that individual Iraqis were the largest foreign property buyers last year. And bankers say Iraqis have swollen foreign deposits in Jordanian banks” [more]
Personally? I hate the very basis of a war in Iraq, but part of me can’t help but feel selfishly satisfied that Jordan has benefited even a little from it, simply by allowing another influx in. Is it selfishness? I don’t know. I suppose it’s mainly the feeling of justice, or rather compensation, perhaps reparations for the stance of during the first Gulf War and the outcome of that.
It feels like it took a decade to get back on our feet.