Bethel Finance news:
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has requested some $5 billion in investment to launch a Palestinian state at a meeting in Brussels, Wednesday with Western donor countries which proclaimed that the Palestinian Authority is “above the threshold of a functioning state.”
The money will finance a three-year development plan to be formally presented in a 63-page document to the 12-member Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) comprising the EU and the United States at a pledging conference in June, Palestinian Planning Minister Ali Jarbawi told Reuters.
The plan calls for an economy led by the private sector, a reduction of the government’s recurrent expenditure and investments in development spending. It promises “a transformation in the nature of external aid that over the next three years that will contribute to real investment in the future of Palestine.”
The journey has been “long an arduous, but the end is now in sight,” Fayyad wrote in an introduction to the plan. “Now it is time for us to be the masters of our own destiny.”
GDP growth is projected to reach nine percent in 2011 and rise to 12 percent in 2012 and 15 per cent in 2013. Unemployment is expected to have declined from 25 percent in 2009to 15 percent in 2013.
The fiscal framework projects 16 percent annualised growth in revenue over the next three years with total revenues exceeding 2 billion dollars in 2011 and well over 3 billion dollars in 2013.
The development plan includes the Gaza Strip under Islamist Hamas control since 2007. Despite some steps taken to bridge the rift with the Fateh- controlled West bank, little progress has been achieved and the two territories are being largely managed as separate economies.
A United Nations report on Tuesday praised marked progress in six areas of Palestinian governance which has paved the way for a functioning state. But it also stressed that the rift between the West Bank and Gaza Strip present obstacles for continued nation building which have to be overcome.
The report , titled “Palestinian State-building: a decisive period” is based on a review of the PA’s implementation of a program initiated in August 2009 aimed at preparing Palestinian institutions for statehood in mid 2011.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have also recently praised Fayyad’s drive over the past two years to establish modern institutions for a Palestinian state.
But there is general consensus, underscored by the current diplomatic stalemate, by Israel, the Palestinians and the international community that only a negotiated settlement which ends the occupation and establishes a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel can end their long and deep seated conflict.
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