The Palestinian economy is poised for rapid growth if Israel eases stifling restrictions, and foreign investors ready to take risks could reap big profits, the World Bank said on Thursday.
Palestinian entrepreneurs are hoping such investors, many from Gulf countries awash with oil wealth, will stump up $2 billion at an investment conference in Bethlehem this week to support local business plans, from tourism to technology.
“While there are risks, there can also be significant returns for businesses willing to get into the elevator on the ground floor,” World Bank Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub told the conference.
The investment drive is part of efforts backed by Middle East envoy Tony Blair to invigorate the moribund Palestinian economy as President Mahmoud Abbas pursues US-backed peace talks with Israel.
The US has been pressing Israel to remove some of the hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints in the occupied West Bank but with little success.
A UN survey has found that only 44 of the 61 obstacles it had agreed to remove had been scrapped, and that most of these were of little or no significance.
Daboub said Israel must unravel its network of checkpoints and roadblocks, which the Jewish state says are needed for security, but which the Palestinians call collective punishment, for the economy to flourish.
He said, however, that Palestinians were still well placed to attract investment, noting they ranked 22nd in the world for business-friendly tax policies and 33rd in terms of a solid legal framework to protect investors.
Bethlehem, like many West Bank cities, is virtually encircled by Israel’s barrier and visitors to the cradle of Christianity must drive past towering walls and military watchtowers.
The situation in the Gaza Strip is even worse, with the economy in meltdown due to an Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave. Israel raids the territory regularly and an explosives-laden truck driven by a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up near the border with Israel on Thursday.
And while Abbas, who is keen to showcase a West Bank security drive, lined Bethlehem streets with police, conference banners along the road were interspersed with occasional posters honouring Palestinian militants killed by Israel.
At least two major Arab investors have already unveiled deals worth about $550 million to build a new Palestinian town and a shopping mall complex in the West Bank.
Dozens of entrepreneurs are hoping to win funding for their own projects, from a fish farm in sanctions-hit Gaza, to a West Bank WiMAX network and a luxury spa hotel in Bethlehem, a traditional destination for Christian tourists.
US Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said American companies should come and look “first hand” at opportunities in the Palestinian areas, though he acknowledged the Gaza Strip was probably off-limits for now.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who was appointed last year after President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Hamas Islamists from government in a move that ended trade sanctions, said “an investment in Palestine is an investment in peace”. (Reuters)
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