Asia

Home page

Asia

Interview: Ending Israeli occupation helps minimizing Palestinian dependence on foreign aids: FM

04 June 2012 21:07 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) can be able to minimize its dependence on foreign aids if the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories ends, a senior Palestinian official told Xinhua in a recent interview, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Nabil Kassis, PNA’s minister of finance, told Xinhua that achieving a financial self-dependence in the budget of the PNA government headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad "is still impossible as the Israeli occupation and its restrictions imposed on our economy are still going on."

Kassis added that "as long as the Israeli occupation of our territories goes on, it will restrict our abilities to achieve a progress in the economical field, consequently, it’s natural to get foreign aids, but we will keep trying to finance ourselves in any future budget."

Since it was founded, the PNA has been depending on foreign aids from various donor countries, mainly the United States, Japan, Europe and some Asian counties. It also relies on the tax revenues it gets on monthly bases from Israel according to the Paris economic protocol.

Three years ago, the PNA had approved various plans aiming to achieve self-dependence in its budget. "Any Palestinian plan to minimize the dependence on foreign aids is part of the plan of improving the abilities (of self-dependence), however, reaching the stage of full dependence is very hard," Kassis said, referring to more than 1 billion U.S. dollars of budget shortage.

The minister, who was sworn in about two weeks ago, forecast that the Palestinian economy growth, currently standing at nine percent, would decline due to the budget shortage.

The reshuffled Palestinian government, taking oath in mid-May, pledged to improve the deteriorated economy and reduce the ongoing shortage of budget.

"The financial situation of the PNA is fragile and we are facing a real financial crisis despite the various attempts to find local and foreign finance," Kassis said, adding "the PNA had received Arab and international promises to increase their aids for this year, and we hope the commitments come true."

However, he noted that the PNA refuse to receive any kind of foreign aids on basis of political preconditions.

"The Israeli holding of Palestinian tax revenues is a clear blackmail and a violation of the bilateral agreements," said Kassis, who called for an active international intervention "to put an end to this behavior that can never be accepted."

The PNA has been accusing Israel of violating the Paris Protocol, which was signed in 1995 to regulate the economic relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and keeping the Palestinian economy under Israel’s grip.

Meanwhile, Kassis said that the PNA is keeping to fight corruption in itself, adding that "it is a priority to reinforce the internal financial situation and earn more credibility in front of the international community."