His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday met with Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang and several top executives from the US-based Internet giant, which recently acquired the Amman-based web portal Maktoob.com.

At the meeting, attended by His Royal Highness Prince Feisal, King Abdullah stressed Jordan's keenness to boost cooperation with the Internet giant to develop the IT sector in the Kingdom, whose revenues rose from $300 million in 1999 to $2.4 billion in 2008.

There are about 350 Jordanian companies working in the IT sector that have created 18,000 direct jobs and 60,000 indirect jobs.

King Abdullah highlighted the local IT sector's achievements, pointing to success stories such as that of Maktoob.com. The King said these stories reflect the development of the sector, which contributes about 12 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

Yahoo! acquired the Amman-based Arabic web portal in late August, giving the company access to Maktoob's approximately 16.5-million-strong audience across the Arabic-speaking world.

Through the deal, Yahoo! will offer Arabic-language content for the first time and versions of its products and services, including instant messaging and e-mail, will be available in Arabic.