Yahoo’s recent acquisition of Maktoob, the leading Arabic online portal for the Middle East and North Africa region, for more than $150m, has left some people puzzled. Why is the largest regional internet company based in Jordan, a country that accounts for only roughly 1 per cent of the Mena region’s gross domestic product and 2 per cent of its population?

With 6m people and a 2008 GDP of $20bn, Jordan has less than half the population of Cairo and its economic output equals half the 2008 revenue of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation. Had the Maktoob story been unique in its Jordanian origins, it would have been easy to brush aside as an anomaly.