Jordan to keep daylight savings time year-round

Kingdom will remain at GMT+3 after government decides clocks will no longer be moved forward

Sunset in Wadi Rum, southern Jordan. AFP

People in Jordan no longer need to move their clocks forward one hour during wintertime, after authorities scrapped the measure on Wednesday.

An official statement said that summertime, or daylight savings time, will now be “all year”.

This means that Jordan will remain at GMT+3 and will not change to GMT+4 later this month.

The decision, reached after “comprehensive study”, makes “most use of the daytime” and makes it more convenient to “interact” with the rest of the world, the government said.

It added that 60 per cent of countries worldwide do not change their clocks at different times of year.

The government added that school classes from October 30 to April 2 will begin at 8.30am instead of between 7.30am and 8.00am so pupils will not go to school in darkness.

In addition, about 900 schools that give late classes with finish before sunset.

The government also instructed universities to push back the times of morning courses.

The response to the news was mixed.

“I thought winter time is done to save energy. It doesn’t matter for me,” said Youssef, an Egyptian national who works as a concierge at a building in Amman and washes the cars of its residents.

“It will be a little more dark when I start washing the cars in the morning.”

In 2016, authorities debated scrapping the time change but decided against. They backed down, however, after a female university student was assaulted at a bus station in the city of Zarqa, to the east of Amman.

Critics said at the time that the early morning darkness encouraged the attack.