JERUSALEM, March 5, 2003: Twenty-seven months after the outbreak of the intifada, 60 percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza live under a poverty line of US$2 per day. The numbers of the poor have tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to nearly 2 million today.
The World Bank’s new report, “Two Years of Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis”, surveys the economic and social damage caused by the current conflict and proposes measures to help stabilize the ailing Palestinian economy. A first draft was presented in February 2003 to the recent meeting in London of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee which is comprised of representatives from Canada, the European Union, Israel, Norway, the Palestinian Authority, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
All Palestinian economic indicators continued their dramatic decline through the second year of the intifada. Gross national income per capita has fallen to nearly half of what it was two years ago. More than 50 percent of the work force is unemployed. Physical damage resulting from the conflict amounted to US$728 million by the end of August 2002. Between June 2000 and June 2002, Palestinian exports declined by almost a half, and imports by a third. Investment shrunk from an estimated US$1.5 billion in 1999 to a mere US$140 million last year. Overall national income losses in just over two years have reached US$5.4 billion - the equivalent of one full year of national income prior to the intifada.
The World Bank’s new report, “Two Years of Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis”, surveys the economic and social damage caused by the current conflict and proposes measures to help stabilize the ailing Palestinian economy. A first draft was presented in February 2003 to the recent meeting in London of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee which is comprised of representatives from Canada, the European Union, Israel, Norway, the Palestinian Authority, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
All Palestinian economic indicators continued their dramatic decline through the second year of the intifada. Gross national income per capita has fallen to nearly half of what it was two years ago. More than 50 percent of the work force is unemployed. Physical damage resulting from the conflict amounted to US$728 million by the end of August 2002. Between June 2000 and June 2002, Palestinian exports declined by almost a half, and imports by a third. Investment shrunk from an estimated US$1.5 billion in 1999 to a mere US$140 million last year. Overall national income losses in just over two years have reached US$5.4 billion - the equivalent of one full year of national income prior to the intifada.