The Chief Executive Officer of the Amman Stock Exchange ASE, Mr. Mazen Al-Wathaifi, said that 167 out of 178 listed companies provided the ASE with the audited financial statements for the year 2020. The profits after tax attributed to shareholders for the public shareholding companies listed on ASE that provided the stock exchange with its financial data amounted to JD383.1 million, compared to JD1115.1 million for the same companies of year 2019, a decrease of 65.6%. And the profits before tax amounted to JD663.0 million for the year 2020, compared to JD1599.3 million for the year 2019, which represents a decrease of 58.5%.
At the sectoral level, the profits after tax attributed to shareholders of companies for the Industrial sector amounted JD142.9 million for the year 2020 compared to JD158.1 million for the year 2019, which represents a decrease of 9.6%. As for Financial sector the profits after tax attributed to shareholders amounted 251.9 million for the year 2020, compared to JD798.3 million for the year 2019, which represents a decrease of 68.4%. And for the Services sector the profits after tax attributed to shareholders showed a negative value of JD 11.8 million for the year 2020 compared to a positive value of JD158.7 million for the year 2019, which represents a decrease of 107.4%.
The CEO pointed out that the repercussions of the Corona crisis and its impact on the companies’ performance and their operational activities, which affected the whole world and led to a decline in supply and overall demand and the global trading activity, especially during the first half of the year 2020, which witnessed the beginning of the crisis, and the measures to confront the spread of the pandemic, including the closure of many economic sectors, was one of the main reasons for the decline in the profits of the listed companies for that year, in addition to the calculation of a number of provisions such as the provision for expected credit losses and the application of some international accounting and financial standards to face the repercussions of the crisis, including the re-evaluation criteria.
Mr. Wathaifi pointed out that the profits of listed companies increased during the second half of the year 2020 to 339.8 million dinars compared to 43.3 million dinars for the first half of the year, as the second half witnessed the reopening of the economic sectors, which calls for optimism for the improvement in the companies’ performance during the next stage in light of the positive developments in terms of the expansion in the vaccination campaigns, improved economic performance, and the expectations of achieving positive growth rates of 2.5%.