Main reports: President Mahmoud Abbas approved the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) budget for 2016 in January. The projected expenditure on public employees’ wages and salaries is $3.9bn, up by 2.1% from the level registered in 2015.
The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors approved a new $5m grant to finance a job creation project in Palestine on 18 December 2015.
Country-level quarterly real GDP increased by 9.6% in Q3 2015 compared to the corresponding quarter in 2014, according to recently published data from PCBS.
In Q3 2015, the current account deficit reached $586m, an increase of 61.3% on the previous quarter.