IMF chief warns that peace deal must create Palestinian jobs

Growth in the West bank and Gaza must be focused on jobs, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, at the start of a conference on the Trump administration’s $50 billion economic plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Business leaders and politicians have gathered in Bahrain to discuss the plan that Washington says is vital to ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but which Palestinian leaders have dismissed as pointless without a political solution.

“One of the really good aspects of the plan ... is that it identifies some of the sectors, some of the industrial and economic sectors, that will be conducive to jobs,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said during the opening session.

“It cannot be any kind of growth in the West Bank and Gaza, it needs to be job intensive,” she added, listing agriculture, tourism and construction as sectors that “will absorb a lot of labor”.

The IMF expects the Palestinian economy to contract by 1.6% this year and says unemployment stands at 30% in the West Bank and 50% in Gaza.

“There is an economic plan, there is urgency: it is a question of making sure that the momentum is sustained,” Lagarde said.

The IMF has been operating in the West Bank and Gaza since 1995, providing loans, credit guarantees, and policy advice to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Source: Reuters

 

The Liberum

Vox Populi, Vox Dei
See full bio >
The Liberum runs on your donation. Fight with us for a free society.
Donation Form (#6)

More articles you might like

Too Clear to Shoot – The numbers game of the ages

Who remembers the Gene Hackman, Will Smith action classic Enemy of the State (1998)? I […]

Anora: The Myth of Freedom in a World of Transactions

Some films are misinterpreted—not because they are difficult to understand, but because the truth they […]

World-building blunders: SF between high and low tech

I know I keep on and on about Dune, but what can I do? I […]

EU under French Gaullism

The ascendancy of US President Donald Trump to a second term came with a seismic change in […]

Torn Asunder: AI between Techno-Fascism and Monotheistic Evolution

I attended an interesting lecture the other day about AI, a very heavy-duty philosophical discussion […]

The Ukraine Paradigm: Challenged by George Kennan and Donald Trump

The current paradigm on the war in Ukraine sees Russia, more specifically Russian leader Vladimir […]