Main reports: The Ministry of Finance released estimates for the PA 2009 budget. Nominal GDP in 2009 is expected to reach $6.3bn, slightly higher than the 2008 GDP budget ($6.1bn).
The Masterplan for ‘Rawabi’, the first planned community in Palestine, was approved by the PA in January 2009.
Paltel’s Board of Directors met last month in Jordan and agreed a general partnership framework with the Kuwaiti private telecommunications company, Zain. Wataniya Palestine Telecom (WPT), Palestine’s second mobile operator, secured a $85m loan on 4 February to support the next phase of its mobile telephone network.
Despite contributing 6.9% of GDP and employing 14.9% of workers in Q2 2008, the agriculture sector received less than 1.6% of banking credit. The agricultural sector’s share of the total micro-credit over the last twenty years has been about 11%.