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Bethlehem, West Bank: Private investors at a Bethlehem conference pledged to pump $1.4 billion into Palestinian businesses to bolster the economy as President Mahmoud Abbas holds statehood talks with Israel.
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said yesterday he expected the investment in local business projects - most of which are in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and cover sectors ranging from real estate to technology - to create up to 35,000 jobs.
Much of the money was pledged by foreign investors, many from Arab countries awash with oil wealth. It comes above a $7.7 billion in aid promised by international donors in Paris in December as a way of bolstering Abbas.
"The message of this conference is that we are determined to change this miserable situation into a better reality, a better tomorrow, void of checkpoints, settlements and walls," Fayyad told a news conference in Bethlehem, referring to obstacles Israel maintains in the West Bank.
Abbas and Fayyad had hoped last week's conference in Bethlehem would attract as much as $2 billion for more than 100 projects in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
Restrictions
But officials from the World Bank and the Palestinian government - including Fayyad himself - have stressed that while investment in the Palestinian territories is crucial, the economy will not flourish unless Israel eases restrictions imposed after the outbreak of an uprising in 2000.
Israel says its network of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank are needed to keep suicide bombers away from its cities but Palestinians call them collective punishment and say they hamper trade.
The United States has been pressing Israel to remove some of the restrictions but with little success.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the conference yesterday Israel must do more to ease restrictions in the West Bank and called Jewish settlement building an "impediment" to peace and economic development. Hundreds of potential investors from the private sector attended the conference and Fayyad said he hoped Israel, which granted permits for most invitees, would prove as flexible in the future.
The $1.4 billion included up to $550 million from major Arab investors for a new West Bank town and a shopping complex. About $650 million would go to technology projects and $100 million on manufacturing.
Entrepreneurs
Fayyad did not say which specific projects attracted funding, but local entrepreneurs had showcased more than 100 ideas including a West Bank WiMAX network and a luxury spa hotel in Bethlehem, which as the traditional birthplace of Jesus, attracts many Christian pilgrims.
Most of the cash would go to the West Bank, where Abbas holds sway, although a small amount would go to technology projects in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, whose economy is in meltdown due to an Israeli-led blockade.
Fayyad, a former World Bank economist who was appointed last year after Abbas dismissed Hamas members from government in a move that ended trade sanctions, said pledges made at the conference were just "the starting point".
"We are throwing a party and the whole world is invited," Fayyad said at the end of the three-day conference.
Telecom : Wataniya to launch mobile network this year
Kuwait's National Mobile Telecommunications Co. (Wataniya) will launch the Palestinian territories' second mobile phone network by the end of 2008, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday.
Wataniya paid 251 million Jordanian dinars ($354.3 million) for the licence to build a second network in the Palestinian territories in September but has been waiting for Israel to provide the frequencies.
Mohammad Mustafa, head of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) which owns 30 per cent of Wataniya's local business, said Israel had told the Palestinian Authority it was "committed to giving the frequencies".
"They gave us 2.4 megahertz and they will give us a similar amount before the end of this year," Mustafa said in an an interview on the sidelines of a Palestinian investment conference in Bethlehem.
"Wataniya can start operating as soon as we get the frequency - before the end of this year," he added.
Mustafa said the 4.8 Megahertz would be enough capacity to serve 1 million subscribers in the Palestinian territories, home to 4 million people. Jawwal, the sole Palestinian mobile firm has about 1 million subscribers.
Wataniya was ready to install hundreds of transmission towers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and had signed deals with distributors and equipment importers.
The World Bank said in February that Israel and the Palestinian Authority should open the Palestinian mobile phone sector to competition to improve efficiency and lower tariffs.
Allan Richardson, Wataniya's CEO in Palestinian territories, said that the new business would create 2,500 jobs and estimated the company's investment in Palestinian territories at $650 million during "the next few years".
"The launch of the company will also initiate a new era of competition in the Palestinian telecommunications sector in which the consumer will be the ultimate winner," Richardson said in a statement.
The PalTel group, whose subsidiary Jawwal is the only authorised mobile operator in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, effectively operates as a monopoly, costing the Palestinian Authority millions of dollars a year, the World Bank said.
Wataniya, which is controlled by Qatar Telecommunications Co., signed a deal with the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) to set up the local operator in December. Wataniya owns 40 per cent of the firm, while PIF holds a 30 per cent stake.
The rest will be offered to Palestinian investors in an initial public offering.
Wataniya has said it will eventually build a high-speed third generation (3G) network, which could give thousands more Palestinians access to the Internet, and that the Palestinian Authority was in talks with Israel to secure 3G frequencies.
Wataniya Telecom, the smaller of two mobile phone firms in Kuwait, has operations in Iraq, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and the Maldives.
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