The Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Investment has has approved a draft law regulating insurance business.

The approval was given at a meeting attended by the governor of the Central Bank, Ziad Fariz; the secretary general of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Industry, Yousef Al Shamali; and representatives of the Jordan Insurance Federation, reported the newspaper Al Rai.

The law, when passed and gazetted, will transfer supervision of the insurance sector from the Insurance Department under the Ministry to the Central Bank of Jordan.

The committee approved the draft law after making the necessary amendments to it and seeking the opinions of stakeholders concerned. The reasons for the Bill are to “regulate the rules of conducting insurance business, in a way that ensures the insurance sector achieve its goals, by updating the supervisory framework of insurance business, and by enabling the Central Bank to supervise and control this sector in line with the best practices.”

Dr Khair Abu Sailik, chairman of the committee, has said that the proposed law would strengthen the role of the Central Bank in establishing the rules of corporate governance in insurance companies and providers of insurance services, and give it the necessary powers to deal with problematic companies. The proposed law will also have provisions governing takaful.