The value of assets held by the Social Security Investment Fund (SSIF), the investment arm of the Social Security Corporation (SSC), picked up by 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2023 to reach JD14.5 billion against JD13.8 billion by the end of last year, said its CEO Ezz El-Din Kanakria in a statement on Monday. Breaking down the fund’s investment portfolios, Kanakria indicated that bonds make up the largest chunk of the fund’s assets accounting for 57.6 percent of the total, followed by stocks with 16.1 percent, financial market instruments with 13.1, real estate investments with 5.7 percent, loans with 3.8 percent and finally ventures in the tourism domain at 2.2 percent. Kanakria stated that the improvement in the overall performance of the investment portfolios was reflected in the fund’s net income, which rose by 21 percent to reach about JD611 million by the end of the third quarter of the current year, compared to JD504.8 million for the same period last year. He pointed out that this positive performance was due mainly to the increase in income generated from the bond portfolio at a value of JD355.2 million, JD143.5 million from the stocks portfolio, JD88.1 million from the financial market instruments portfolio, in addition to returns on loan portfolios and real estate investments. Furthermore, Kanakria indicated that the recovery of the tourism sector after the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as the measures that were taken to improve the performance of the tourism portfolio, were reflected in the performance results of Social Security hotels, which achieved operating profits amounting to JD9.6 million by the end of the third quarter of the current year.
Source: Jordan News Agency