Kerry unveils US$4 billion Palestinian investment plan

JORDAN: US Secretary of State John Kerry unveiled Sunday a plan to boost the Palestinian economy by attracting $4 billion in private investment, saying it could transform the lives of the people.

As he seeks to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the table to negotiate a peace deal, Kerry said it was also imperative to create jobs and meet the hopes of young people for a better economic future.

He has tasked Tony Blair, the Quartet's special envoy to the Middle East, with drawing up a plan to revitalise the West Bank through boosting industries such as tourism, construction, information technology and agriculture. The group was putting together recommendations for the Palestinian leadership to decide on, aiming to “mobilise some $4 billion of investment”.

“These experts believe we will increase the Palestinian GDP by as much as 50 percent over three years,” Kerry told the closing session of the World Economic Forum meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan.

“The most optimistic estimates foresee enough new jobs to cut unemployment by two-thirds to eight percent down from 21 percent and to increase the median wage by 40 percent,” said the top US diplomat. Some 100,000 jobs in home construction alone could be created in the next three years, while tourism could triple.

While details of the plan remained sketchy, Blair's office said in statement they were “analyzing the potential of various sectors of the Palestinian economy and identifying measures that could be taken to spur transformative growth.” They were “consulting with a number of key international and local experts and stakeholders from the different economic sectors” and would provide details “in due course,” it added.

Kerry warned the forum however it stood before a historic moment, amid the yearnings for greater economic and social freedoms unleashed by the Arab Spring.

“We ignore the lessons of the Arab awakening at our own peril... it is imperative that all of us channel our creativity and energy into making sure that people do actually have better choices,” he said. He urged public and private sectors to work together saying they each “have a responsibility to meet the demands of this moment and one can't do it without the other. We need you at the table”.

“If we don't eagerly grab this moment we will condemn ourselves to a future conflict. We are staring down a dangerous path filled with potential violence, with the capacity to harden divisions, increase instability.

“And this will be a path filled by violent extremists who rush to fill the vacuum.” In a separate initiative unveiled at the forum in the Jordanian town of Al Shunah, some 300 Israeli and Palestinian business executives also urged their governments to move towards a two-state solution.

AFP