S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The economy of Palestine is losing competitiveness, with difficulty to export and an industry based on products with little added value. This is the conclusion of report "Fiscal Challenges and Long Term Economic Costs" disclosed on Tuesday (12) by the World Bank and scheduled for release at the forum of donors to the Palestinian Authority on the 19th, in Brussels, Belgium. The study also shows that the funds donated to Palestine are only enough to supply the short-term needs, but not to guarantee their development.<\/p>\n
The report recotnizes that the economy of Palestine has grown. From January to September 2012, for example, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the West Bank grew 5.48% and that of Gaza Strip, 7.7%. The GDP of the occupied territories grew 6.06% in the period. However, according to the study, the economic activity of Palestine expanded less in the first three months of 2012 than in 2010 or 2011 due to a "decline" in agriculture and fishery and to slow growth in civil construction. <\/p>\n
Participation of exports in the country\u2019s GDP has been dropping since 1994 and in 2011 answered to 7% of all the country produced, one of the worst performances worldwide. The World Bank also observes that products made and exported by Palestine have low added value, which stunts export revenues. Of total Palestinian sales in 2011, Israel bought 86%, Jordan 5%, the United Arab Emirates, 1%, the United States, 1%, Saudi Arabia, 1%, and other countries together, 5%. The main products exported were stone for civil construction (12.8% of the total), iron and steel ingots (7.9%) and marble (4.6%).<\/p>\n
Other factors stunting the growth of Palestine are precarious infrastructure, lack of funds for long-term activities and lack of qualified labour. With regard to unemployment, the report shows that apart from high, it is also long-lasting, which stunts the working population from developing abilities to operate in a specific sector of the economy. In 2012, unemployment in the Palestinian territories reached 22.9% of population. The average time a Palestinian was unemployed in 2011 was one year, double that recorded in 2000.<\/p>\n
According to the World Bank study, in recent years, Palestine has had advances that allow its institutions to perform state activities. However, restrictions imposed by Israel to the country\u2019s development and lack of progress in negotiations restrict the country\u2019s sustainable growth. <\/p>\n
The World Bank\u2019s director for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Mariam Shreman, stated that continued donations and greater reforms allowing the Palestinian Authority to manage \u201cfiscal challenges\u201d is still the priority. \u201cHowever, much bolder efforts to create the basis for a viable economy need to be made.\u201d In the evaluation of the director, these efforts will avoid deterioration of the Palestine economy and of the population\u2019s living conditions.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Mark Ament<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A World Bank report shows that donations turned to the Palestinian National Authority are enough to supply primary needs, but not to grant growth and development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"A World Bank report shows that donations turned to the Palestinian National Authority are enough to supply primary needs, but not to grant growth and development.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}