ZCZC
BCN-14
SAUDI-PALESTINIANS-ECONOMY
Saudi, Palestinians agree on joint business council
RIYADH, Oct 18, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians agreed
on Thursday to establish a joint economic committee and a business council,
as the Palestinian Authority faces a financing gap that could top $1.8
billion.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s PA has been in deep financial crisis
since February when Israel froze transfers of VAT and customs duties it
collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.
His administration had to impose austerity measures, cutting almost half
the salaries of its employees.
Abbas, who arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday, met with King Salman and Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the official Saudi Press Agency
(SPA).
It added that the leaders reached “an agreement on the establishment of a
joint economic committee and on a Saudi-Palestinian business council”.
The report did not elaborate further.
The announcement came days after Saudi Arabia’s football team played
Palestine in the occupied West Bank for the first time on Tuesday, with the
Saudi side having previously refused to enter the territory as part of its
boycott of Israel.
Israel’s cuts have hit hard on the Palestinian territories, already
suffering unemployment of around 26 percent in the second quarter of 2019,
the World Bank said last month in a report.
Israel collects around $190 million a month in customs duties levied on
goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through its ports, and it
is supposed to transfer the money to the PA.
In February, Israel decided to deduct around $10 million a month from the
revenues — the sum the PA paid inmates in Israeli jails or their families —
prompting the Palestinians to refuse to take any funds at all.
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner during a conference
in Bahrain dangled the prospect of $50 billion of investment into a stagnant
Palestinian economy.
But the plan so far fails to address key issues such as an independent
Palestinian state, Israeli occupation and the Palestinians’ right to return
to homes from which they fled or were expelled after Israel’s creation in
1948.
BSS/AFP/HR/1005